


Echoes

by ChipTheKeeper



Series: Shock [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipTheKeeper/pseuds/ChipTheKeeper
Summary: It wasn’t that she hadn’t meant what she suggested - she really did want nothing more than to help the Alderaanian find a new home, and perhaps one for her as well - she just hadn’t put great odds on Cara actually agreeing. So when she did, and melted Rylan’s heart with a kiss in the process, the Corellian had to admit she didn’t have much of a plan.“Oh. Uh, I dunno,” she said, searching her mind for a good option but finding a joke before she could get there. “I really liked Hoth. You wanna try Hoth?”The sweetly serious look on Cara’s face gave way to an eye roll and she scooted away from the blonde’s side with a gentle shove. “Don’t make me regret this, Killis.”A series of moments in Cara and Rylan's journey.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Character(s), Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Shock [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698037
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. The One

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the first work of this series (Shock) before getting into this. Most of these moments will take place between Part 3 and 4 of that story, but I will try to make note of it when they do not.

Having acted purely on impulse and not a ton of thought, as per usual, Rylan didn’t have an answer ready when Cara asked where they’d go first.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t meant what she suggested - she really did want nothing more than to help the Alderaanian find a new home, and perhaps one for her as well - she just hadn’t put great odds on Cara actually agreeing. So when she did, and melted Rylan’s heart with a kiss in the process, the Corellian had to admit she didn’t have much of a plan.

“Oh. Uh, I dunno,” she said, searching her mind for a good option but finding a joke before she could get there. “I really liked Hoth. You wanna try Hoth?”

The sweetly serious look on Cara’s face gave way to an eye roll and she scooted away from the blonde’s side with a gentle shove. “Don’t make me regret this, Killis.”

Rylan laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll be good,” she said, standing up and extending a hand to Cara. “How about we talk about that later and in the meantime we go make sure the rest of the team knows you’re alright.”

After the somewhat dramatic exit from the breakfast table, Rylan was surprised no one had followed her, expecting Maggi at least to check in. But they’d let her handle it. The team had taken notice of how quickly the pair had grown close - almost inseparable - even though none of them understood why. Neither Cara nor Rylan were particularly forthcoming about their histories or personal lives, at least with anyone but each other.

So Ry wasn’t surprised that she could practically feel the hesitation through Cara’s hand as she helped her off the floor. “Do we have to?”

“Yes. _We_ do,” Rylan said, continuing to hold her hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.”

Cara nodded, gave the hand holding hers a squeeze, and opened the door.

~

Two days after the team heard Cara’s story and took turns offering to take her with them wherever they were headed next (“Oh and you too Ry, if you guys are like a package deal or whatever,” Timber had said), the Alderaanian and Corellian were left alone in the suite, having turned down the offers. They’d decided they would stick around on Coruscant and give it a try, at least until their next deployment.

“Lio only paid for this place up through the end of the week so we better get started looking for somewhere else to stay,” Cara said over a cup of coffee at the dining room table. “Unless we want to end up rooming with Herk.”

“Ehhh, as delightful as that sounds….definitely gonna go with the first option.”

“Thought so.”

Rylan had no desire to go apartment hunting, though, and offered to go look for a ship while Cara found them a place to stay. She couldn’t wait to get into the pilot’s seat again, even if it wasn’t in a battle. She missed the feeling of being in control of something so large and powerful. Hell, she missed the feeling of being in control of anything. Since being grounded she had just been taking orders, doing what she was told, going through the motions. She believed in the fight and the cause of course, but it was harder to stay engaged in it when she wasn’t doing it in the way she loved. And while she didn’t necessarily love being a shock trooper, joining this new team had thankfully motivated her and re-ignited her passion for the Alliance.

Of course a lot of that had to do with Cara, who now told her they didn’t have enough credits to both buy a ship and live on this planet for three months. Rylan agreed and promised she’d just go and scope out a good place to buy a ship for when they did have enough. Cara just eyed her for a moment suspiciously, weighing the likelihood of that, knowing full well how much her friend missed flying.

“Looking only?”

“Looking only. Promise. I mean, unless they let me take one for a test-fly.”

Cara shook her head. “Alright. Just don’t get attached.”

“Yes ma’am, Commander Cara,” Rylan answered with a sarcastic salute.

~

Later that day Rylan found herself completely lost, trying to navigate the endless city of Coruscant and its confusing layers. She’d basically been wandering aimlessly all day, asking random people if they knew of starship dealers and checking out the ones they suggested. She’d even been to the same one twice without realizing it.

She had been told about another and decided to make it her last stop before calling it a day, but the directions she’d received from the Rodian she spoke to about it had either gotten jumbled in her mind or were bad from the beginning. Rylan stopped in a random shop and asked the first person she saw if they knew where to find it, feeling like the luckiest person in the galaxy when they told her it was just one level up from where they were.

Upon first glance around the place she thought it might not be worth all the effort. The ships on display were all shiny and new - obviously out of their price range even if they were to save years of their army salaries. But the salesman insisted on showing her around anyway, despite her telling him point-blank that she wouldn’t be buying anything.

Rylan’s focus drifted as he droned on about some sleek new model of Nubian starship, her eyes settling on a rather junky-looking craft hidden away behind two more ships. She started off in the direction of the hunk of gray metal, leaving the salesman talking to himself. As she moved past the ships blocking it and saw the familiar shape of a VCX-100, she couldn’t help but smile.

Growing up on Corellia, the only thing that had ever brought Rylan much joy had been staring at the sky, watching ships come and go and dreaming about one day being on one that was going. She couldn’t count the times she’d thought about trying to stow away on some just-built freighter and dealing with the consequences wherever and whenever it landed. And the VCX-100 was the one she most often fantasized about.

The one in this shipyard looked extremely out of place. All the other cruisers and starships were new and sparkling, whereas the Corellian freighter looked like it had definitely seen its fair share of star systems already. _No wonder it was hidden_ , Rylan thought, wondering why it was even there at all.

The salesman had finally noticed her absence and caught up to her. “There’s no use looking at this one,” the portly man said dismissively. “It wouldn’t even make it off the ground.”

“Well, why don’t you fix it?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the craft.

“What would be the point?” he asked rhetorically. “None of our clientele would be interested in such a heap of junk even if it did fly.”

Rylan asked what exactly was wrong with it, and he gave her a list of what she considered easily-fixable problems. “Why even keep it here if you can’t sell it?”

“Truthfully I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose in case we need to scrap it for parts.”

She chuckled. “None of the parts on this thing will be any good in these ships. Corellian equipment doesn’t play well with Nubian engineering,” she said, the wheels beginning to turn in her mind. 

She hoped Cara wouldn’t be upset - she’d gotten attached.

~

“So he just, gave you a ship for nothing?” the Alderaanian asked when they were both back at the rented suite, not upset but skeptical.

“Well, not for nothing,” Rylan defended. “I still have to fix it up, but that’ll cost way less than buying a whole ship.”

“This guy doesn’t sound like a very good salesman.”

“Or maybe I’m just a better one,” Ry countered. She had succeeded in convincing the guy that it was better for business if she took the ship off his hands and cleared up the space for better ships that he could actually sell. Her claim that the Corellian parts wouldn’t be of any use to him was only half-true - some of them would work - but he’d bought it. Cara squinted at her with amused doubt. “Okay, maybe I...stretched the truth and tricked him a little bit. But come on, this is perfect. I mean, it was like a sign. Me, a Corellian, finding the only Corellian ship in the place? The only ship he had no interest in selling? I’m tellin’ you, this is the one.”

“Okay, and what if you spend a bunch of credits fixing it and it still doesn’t fly?”

Rylan scoffed with offense. “Cara. Please. She’ll fly.”

The commander just looked at her, taking in the confident smile. If anybody else had been making the suggestion, Cara’s better judgement would have denied them. But as she searched the blue eyes in front of her, she saw no reason to doubt.

“Alright. You got three months.”

Rylan gasped delightedly, like a kid being given a new favorite toy. She ran to Cara and grabbed her shoulders, planting an appreciative kiss on her forehead before running off to their bunk for supplies. “Only need a week!”

Cara shook her head in amusement, thankful the Corellian didn’t stick around to see her blush, wondering just what she’d gotten herself into in agreeing to that lunatic's plans.

~

Rylan kept her word, finishing her repair job in a week and - she proudly reported - for less money than she’d initially thought. Cara had done her job too, securing them not only a place to sleep but also starship parking for the duration of their stay until their next assignment. She made a point of telling Ry she’d been able to do it without tricking anyone, but that brag fell flat with her mildly-chaotic companion.

Rylan had denied Cara’s requests to see the ship before she was finished with it, but now waited for her opinion as she unveiled it for the first time. “Well?”

“It’s….” Cara started.

“Be careful how you finish that sentence.”

“...neat?”

“‘Neat’?” Rylan echoed. “What kind of a word is ‘neat’? This is….this is a thing of beauty!”

“Where?” said the Alderaanian, making a show of looking behind the VCX.

“Okay, I don’t expect you to get it, but I didn’t think you’d hurt my feelings,” Ry pouted.

Cara laughed. “I’m just playing with you, Killis. She looks great.”

“Not nice,” the Corellian muttered. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go for a ride, but now I don’t know if you deserve one.”

“Oh please. We both know you’re dying to show off,” Cara said, stepping onto the entry ramp and into the ship with a teasing smile.

 _Damn, she’s good_.

Rylan gave Cara the grand tour, showing her all the different compartments of the ship as well as the modifications she’d made. They explored the cargo hold, galley, sleeping quarters, gun turrets, and common room before finally reaching the cockpit.

Cara watched as Rylan sat down reverently in the pilot’s seat and ran her hands across the controls. She took a seat in the co-pilot’s chair and tried to see it all through the Corellian’s eyes. To Cara, a ship was just a means of transportation, something to get her from one place to another. But to Rylan, this ship meant freedom. It meant she could decide in one moment that she wasn’t happy where she was, and the next moment be somewhere new. It meant the chance to chase down the life she wanted. Cara realized she didn’t know yet what kind of life Rylan wanted, but she was pretty sure she’d learn soon enough, and likely in that very chair.

“So?” she asked. “Are we going for a ride?”

Rylan snapped out of her trance and grinned. “You bet your ass we’re going for a ride. Can you flip that switch in front of you?”

“Which one? Here?”

“No, that one. Nope. Yeah, there,” Cara flipped the switch and Rylan pulled a lever, bringing the ship to life with a purr. “There she is. Buckle up.”

Rylan guided the ship gently into the air. She dodged the speeder lanes, shooting straight for the upper atmosphere. Laughing as her co-pilot gripped her seat tightly, she flew in loops and patterns, testing the ship’s limits and finding it up to the task. Satisfied with the VCX’s power and handling, Rylan brought them out of the atmosphere and to a stop in the planet’s orbit. She turned the craft around so the surface was visible in front of them.

“What are you doing?” Cara asked as they sat there.

Rylan turned to her and shrugged. “You’re the one that wanted to see the whole city.”

Cara looked out over the planet with a smile, a billion shimmering lights looking back at her. As amazing as the view from the signal tower had been, it was nothing compared to this.

“Gotta say. You did a good job, Captain,” she said.

“Thank you. She was a genuine pleasure to work with,” Rylan patted the dash affectionately. “Needs a name, though.”

“It doesn’t already have a name?”

She shook her head. “Not that the dealer knew. Got any ideas?”

“Uhh, no. No, I don’t,” Cara said honestly.

“Just give it a shot,” Rylan urged.

“I don’t know, Ry. Maybe the…. _Spirit_?”

“ _Spirit_?” the Corellian repeated. “What, like, a ghost?”

“No, like...your spirit, your...attitude,” Cara attempted to explain.

“Nah, still sounds ghostly to me. Not sure that’s the vibe we wanna give her.”

“Okay, then you say something because I’m bad at this," Cara said, throwing up her hands.

“Yes, I thought you might be, that’s why I made you do it,” Rylan admitted, earning a punch in the arm. She groaned and rubbed the spot. “Alright, you wanna know what I was thinking?”

“Better be something good.”

“Okay. How about,” she paused, “the _Echo_?”

“ _Echo_ ….” Cara repeated, trying it out. “I actually really like that.”

“Right? But wait,” Rylan said, looking seriously at her. “I think we should officially call it the _Alderaan Echo_.”

Cara sighed. “Ry…”

“Only if you want to.”

“Why can’t you name it after Corellia?” she asked.

“She’s already Corellian, that’s where she was born,” Rylan explained. “This way she’s….she’s got a piece of both of us.”

It was then that Cara realized she’d never met anyone as thoughtful and kind as Rylan, someone so sincere and sweet. She thanked the stars they had found each other, that they’d be going on this journey together. There was no one else she would ever want to trust with such an important mission.

“Well. How can I say no to that?,” she said with a smile, which Rylan matched. “ _Alderaan Echo_ it is.”


	2. The Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cara and Rylan have their first fight. And a couple of other firsts along the way.

From the moment Cara’s lips had met hers in that ever so brief moment on the floor in their rented room, Rylan couldn’t go five minutes without thinking about it. Two months had passed, but no matter where she was, what she was working on, who she was with - her mind would drift involuntarily to that second.

It had caught her by surprise. She could tell Cara wasn’t the type of person to show affection so openly, especially so early into knowing someone. Losing everyone you’ve ever loved, the way she had, didn’t make it easy to get close to anyone. But Rylan also knew that the Alderaanian trusted her, for whatever reason, and had from the day they met.

And it was a mutual feeling. Despite their first interaction being a violent one she’d felt nothing but fondness for the commander, and that had only grown deeper with each passing day. The more they talked, trained together, explored the city, or just sat silently in each other’s presence, the more Rylan felt their connection grow.

But the moment her mind always went back to was the kiss. It was still the only time Cara’s affection had taken a physical form, so Rylan was mostly able to tell herself that it had just been something done in the heat of the moment, out of appreciation more than anything. And yet there were times, a few brief seconds here and there, when she could swear she’d caught Cara glancing at her lips while biting her own.

Those moments played on a loop in Rylan’s mind as she tossed and turned in her bunk, as had become the routine for her recently. She supposed it was better than the alternative, better than the nightmares that had plagued her on a regular basis since she’d been shot down. It was a wonder she could sit in the pilot’s chair at all anymore, considering how many times she’d crashed and burned in her sleep.

As she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow she heard a sound from the room next door, Cara’s room. Rylan lifted her head and strained to listen. She heard it again, a muffled shout, a cry for help, in her roommate’s voice.

The Corellian bolted from her bed and grabbed her blaster from under it, thinking back to how she had very explicitly told Cara she didn’t think this was the safest neighborhood for them to live. Her heart raced as she rushed to the other room and burst through the door, ready for a fight.

But there was no one to fight. It was only Cara, asleep but tossing fitfully. “No!” she shouted in her sleep, and suddenly Rylan understood. “We have to go! Leave!”

Ry hurried to her side as Cara’s nightmare raged on. “Hey, hey, it’s alright,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing a calming hand on the side of her face. “Cara, it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

The Alderaanian woke up with a start and looked confusedly at the face in front of her. “Ry?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling reassuringly. “You’re alright. It was just a nightmare.”

Cara placed her hand over Rylan’s but didn’t move it. Her eyes portrayed a heavy mix of fear and sorrow. “They- they wouldn’t come. My parents. I….I couldn’t save them”

“It wasn’t real, Cara. It wasn't your fault.” The look in those desperate eyes almost brought hers to tears. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Cara just stared at her, slowly waking all the way up and realizing Rylan was telling the truth. She relaxed and took a deep breath as Ry brought her hand down from her face and went to stand. “No. Stay,” she said calmly. “Please.”

“Of course,” Rylan said, smiling softly and sliding into the spot Cara moved to open up.

“Wait, why do you have your blaster?”

“Oh,” she said, just remembering the weapon still in her hand. “Well, naturally when I heard you screaming I had to come to your rescue. Only, I expected to be saving you from some thugs. And then telling you I told you so.”

“Naturally,” Cara agreed. “Because I couldn’t handle some thugs by myself.”

“Not if you’re asleep!”

“Well, I guess I should be thankful you’re so valiant,” she said, resting her head on Rylan’s shoulder.

“I think you should,” Ry mumbled.

Cara sat halfway up suddenly and leaned on her elbow, looking down at the Corellian seriously. “I am thankful for you, you know.”

“Yeah?” Rylan was taken aback by the sudden admission.

“Yeah,” she said with a slight smile. “Having you here, it….it makes me feel-”

As Cara searched for the right word, Rylan’s mind filled in the blank with everything she felt when they were together. _Safe. Happy. Excited. Inspired. Needed. Lucky._

“Whole,” Cara said, summarizing all those feelings at once. 

Somehow putting them all together made it feel so much more real. More frightening, but in a good way. And to know that Cara felt the same way, well, it was almost more than her heart could take. Almost.

Rylan gazed up into the dark eyes boring into hers and smiled. “Good. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Cara smiled back at her. “Promise?” she asked.

All the moments that had been keeping her awake that night flashed through Rylan’s mind as she watched Cara bite her lip in anticipation. She didn’t want this to become another one of those.

She reached up and gently drew Cara’s face within an inch of hers, then kissed her. Not for a second, not out of appreciation. But like she meant it. Like she wanted to. Like Cara deserved.

Rylan started to pull away but felt Cara kiss her back. She smiled as she held onto it for a second more, then broke it to look deep into the brown eyes inches from hers.

“I promise.”

~

Rylan didn’t have any trouble sleeping after that. For the next month, they more often than not fell asleep together, in the comfort of each other’s arms. When one of them had a nightmare, the other was right there to soothe it away, or to stay up and talk through it.

Just as they were settling into life together, though, it was time to report for duty again.

“I think we should just stay,” Rylan joked as they lay in bed on their last morning alone. Their bags were packed and the Echo was ready to go. In a few hours they’d be back with the team, but for now, all she wanted was to stay like this, with Cara’s head on her chest and their hands intertwined. “The rest of the crew can handle it. They’re good.”

Cara snorted. “Yeah, that’s a negative, Captain. I don’t know about you necessarily, but they’d be lost without me.”

“Yeah, I’d be lost without you too.”

The Alderaanian sighed. “Not what I meant.”

“I know,” Rylan said and kissed the top of her head. “But it’s probably true.”

Later as she guided the Echo off the planet to leave, she found herself sad to say goodbye to the world they’d spent the last few months on. She turned to Cara, who sported a similarly wistful expression as she looked out the viewport.

“Well, what do you think?” she asked. “Coruscant gonna be home?”

Cara met her gaze and shook her head. “As special a place as it’ll have in my heart,” she said, reaching for Rylan’s hand, “I really need some green in my life.”

Ry let out a laugh, bringing Cara’s hand up to kiss it. “Well, I know just the place.”

~

Where they ended up for their first assignment back certainly did not fill Cara’s need for greenery. At least, not where they were. Intel said Kessel’s southern hemisphere was lush and beautiful, but they’d been dropped in the northern part, a barren wasteland occupied almost completely by mines.

The unit had been tasked with taking back control of one mine in particular, where an Imperial remnant had taken over a key coaxium deposit. It was straightforward enough, the head Imp didn’t have much support, only able to hold and run the mine as long as he had through the intimidation of the slaves under his thumb. The Alliance had organized an uprising among them, leaving the Imp exposed, and the shock troopers just needed to take him down along with a couple dozen stormtroopers.

In the end, they’d accomplished that. But not quite as easily as they should have. 

They’d pinned down the building where the Imp was holed up and located him in a central room, but getting there was another matter. His troopers were loyal, defending the room courageously against the short-sided unit. The droppers were more skilled, however, and dispatched the majority of them with precision.

With only a few left standing, Cara had seen an opportunity. The door between them and the Imp was clear, as the remaining bucketheads were engaged against Lio and Herk. She broke for the door, blasting the control panel to open it. But when the door whooshed open, two more troopers stood in the opening. They fired at the shock trooper bearing down on them, and Cara fell in a heap.

She cursed profusely and held her side, where the blaster bolt had hit her, and the rest of the droppers formed up in a circle around her while continuing the shootout. With the last two troopers from the room taken out, they captured the head Imp easily.

It had taken every ounce of Rylan’s discipline to stay focused on the job and not on Cara as Timber, the biggest and strongest of the group, dragged the commander to safety and the rest of them carried on with the mission. 

Back at the base hours later, a medical droid gave Cara’s wound one more look over, finding it to be healing satisfactorily already. Rylan entered as it finished up and stood across the room with her arms crossed and a sour look on her face. 

They hadn’t gotten to speak on the transport back, as Cara had been attended to and Rylan gave a report to their superiors, and the more she’d gone over the incident, the more upset she’d become. She knew it was in Cara’s nature to rush in to a fight, to be the hero, to sacrifice herself for the greater good. But there was no need for that this time. And it only felt reckless to her that she’d done it. That she hadn’t thought about the potential consequences.

“Hey,” Cara said with a grin, noticing her entrance but not her demeanor. “That was a close one, huh?”

“What the hell were you thinking,” Rylan said coldly, not a question so much as an accusation.

“What?” the Alderaanian asked, genuinely confused at her tone.

“What were you thinking rushing in like that? You were supposed to wait for the rest of us,” Ry said, her voice growing steadily louder. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

Cara scoffed. “Don’t try to lecture me, Rylan. I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you have.”

“Dammit, Cara, that’s not the point,” she was practically yelling now, and it registered in her head that they might be having their first fight. “The war’s over, there’s no need for that hero shit now. All we had to do was bring him in.”

“What is your problem right now?” Cara demanded, standing up toe-to-to with the Corellian. “The job is done, everyone is fine. We got the guy.”

“What’s my problem?” Rylan echoed incredulously. “My problem is you having no second thoughts whatsoever about doing something that could have - should have - gotten you killed!”

“You didn’t have any problem with it on Jakku.”

“It’s different now, Cara, you can’t just do that anymore!” she exclaimed desperately.

“Why? How is it any different now?”

“Because now you have someone who loves you!” Rylan blurted. 

She laughed dryly to herself as a silence followed and she took in the surprised look on Cara’s face. She sat down on the observation table with a heavy sigh and ran a hand through her hair. “And that is….so not how I wanted to say that to you for the first time. But it had to be said.”

“So I don’t get myself killed?” Cara asked quietly, moving to stand in front her.

“Yes,” Ry said, reaching out to take her hand. “And because it’s true.”

It was. She’d never known before what that word meant. But she knew what she felt for Cara was something special, something different. She knew she’d go to the ends of the galaxy for this woman. She’d stand down the entire Imperial army by herself just to have a chance to see her smile.

“I’m sorry,” the commander said, joining their other hands and resting her forehead on Rylan’s. “I’m not used to thinking in those situations. I’ve always just acted.”

“I know.”

“But I’m going to try to start.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

“Because there’s someone I love now, too.”

Rylan’s head snapped up to study her face, finding a warm smile and, indeed, love in her eyes. Cara kissed her deeply, as if to take away any doubt of her admission, but there was none.

The captain began to laugh as they broke apart, burying her face in Cara’s strong shoulder.

“What’s so funny?

“It’s just,” she looked up again and glanced around, “this isn’t how I pictured it but it does feel kinda right, you know?”

Cara squinted in confusion then looked around the med bay as Rylan had. She shook her head and laughed as well. “We’ve come full circle, haven’t we?”

“That we have,” Ry agreed, silently thanking the stars for that fateful punch in the jaw. “I love you, Cara Dune.”

The Alderaanian cocked an eyebrow playfully at her. “Since when?”

“Oh, since….day one,” she said, only half-kidding.

Cara rolled her eyes. “On day one I punched you in the face.”

“Yeah, it was hot. You made quite an impression.”

“In your skull.”

“No,” Rylan said, putting her hand over her chest. “In my heart.”

The commander tried not to snort at the cheesy line but couldn’t help it. “You’re so weird.”

“Yeah,” Ry agreed. “But you love me.”

“I do,” Cara said with a nod. “I love you, Rylan Killis.”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sure wish I could write action whatsoever, but we work with what we got.


	3. The Thief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rylan has an eventful homecoming. We see a new side of Cara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was gonna hang on to this one for another day or two but it's Gina's birthday and this is how I choose to celebrate.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Rylan couldn’t believe her bad luck. Of all the possible planets their unit could have been assigned for its next stint of duty, she couldn’t believe it had to be her home world. She couldn’t believe she was going back to Corellia.

“Nope,” Cara said, sitting down on the bed opposite Rylan’s in their shared room on the Alliance base. They’d agreed to maintain as much professionalism as possible while at work, including keeping separate beds, but they’d both be lying if they said they didn’t consider breaking that agreement every night. “Shipping out in the morning.”

“What could we possibly be doing there?”

“Nothing too interesting,” the commander said dismissively. “Apparently some crazies have been carrying out attacks in Coronet City. Supposedly it’s all calming down but they’re sending us for a round of patrol duty.”

“Patrol duty?” Rylan repeated, confused. “Isn’t that a little below our pay grade?”

Cara shrugged in agreement. “Like I said, nothing too interesting.”

“Yeah, that sounds like home sweet home alright,” the captain said, staring off at nothing, already lost in thoughts about what returning to Corellia - to her home city - could bring. Nothing good, that much she was sure of. The only good thing in her life that had ever come out of that place was her ship. But hopping in the _Echo_ and flying far away from there was not an option at the moment.

Quick to notice Rylan shutting down, Cara moved to sit beside her and hug her around the waist. “Hey. It’ll be okay. I’ll be right there and it’s only for a few weeks.”

“Weeks!?” Rylan cursed and sighed, melting into her embrace. She knew she shouldn’t complain, not in front of Cara. At least she could go back home. At least Corellia was still there. But just because it was there didn’t mean there was anything there for her.

“You wanna talk about it?” the Alderaanian asked.

“Not really.”

Cara let out a small laugh. “You know, sometimes I can’t get you to stop talking. But when it comes to this you’ve barely said a word. Why’s that?”

“It just….doesn’t seem fair for me to complain about my homeworld when….” she trailed off, but Cara understood.

“It would be more unfair if I were to hold that against you, Ry,” she said, turning around so they were facing each other. “I want to know about you, and where you came from. I want to know everything.”

Rylan had to admit that was a first. No one, even people she’d considered her friends, had ever pushed her to talk about where she came from. Not that many even knew where she came from. But with Cara, there was no subject too personal, no topic off-limits. They’d covered almost everything. How they’d gotten this far without delving into her past, she didn’t quite know. But she knew there was no getting out of it now.

“Why do you hate it so much?” Cara asked with her trademark directness. “I mean, I know life’s not easy there, but what makes you not want to talk about it? That’s where you learned to fly and everything, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s where I learned to fly,” she confirmed, standing up to stare out the window thoughtfully before continuing in a voice just above a whisper. “And where I learned to fight. To cheat, lie, steal….kill.”

She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw. “It’s where I learned how to do all the terrible things people do to each other.”

Cara didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t think Rylan was capable of doing anything terrible to anybody. She was the kindest, gentlest, most pure-hearted person she’d ever met. How someone so good could have come from a place like that….it was hard to fathom. She supposed maybe that was the only way it could have turned out. If Rylan was any different deep down, at her core, she wouldn’t have survived a place like that. She certainly wouldn’t have gotten out to be where she was today.

The Alderaanian rose to stand next to her, matching her gaze out the window. “Just because you know how to do terrible things doesn’t make you a terrible person,” she said, getting to the heart of Rylan’s worries.

“Yeah but I did them. I’ve done all that stuff.”

“So have I. You don’t think I’m a terrible person, do you?”

Rylan turned her head to face Cara’s dark eyes and sighed. “No, of course not.”

The commander shrugged. “See? It’s more complicated than just what you’ve done,” she said, placing a steadying hand on her arm. “I know you, Ry. I know you’re better than whatever you think that place made you.”

The Corellian dropped her eyes to stare at her feet, fighting back tears she couldn’t explain. She took a shuddering breath as Cara wrapped her in a hug again. She didn’t know if she fully believed them yet, but hearing those words freed her in a way she hadn’t known she needed. Rylan could logically justify every wrong thing she’d ever done, her conscience was clear. But she’d never been able to shake the feeling that she was always one bad situation away from becoming what she hated. And in her darkest moments, she believed she already was.

But seeing herself through Cara’s eyes - the eyes of someone who loved her and only ever saw the good in her - made her realize for the first time that what she did now was more important than what she’d been through. Without being conscious of it, she’d been spending years doing as much good as possible to outweigh all the bad. And it had worked. At least through Cara’s eyes.

For now, she figured, that was enough.

Rylan looked up into those eyes and shook her head. “How’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Just….make everything okay like it’s nothing.”

Cara shrugged one shoulder and bit her lip. “That’s my job.”

The Corellian laughed and nodded. “You’re very good at your job.”

“I know,” Cara said, pulling her in to kiss her with every ounce of love she could muster.

They both agreed it would be okay to suspend their separate bed policy for one night.

~

Patrol duty did turn out to be below their unit’s pay grade, and it didn’t take long for the boredom to set in.

The droppers had the day shift of patrolling a section of the capital city and hadn’t seen much action at all that couldn’t have been handled by local police if they weren’t short-handed. They fought the restlessness by spending the evenings in various bars and cantinas, attempting to at least spice up their nights after long, boring days.

Rylan couldn’t get over how surreal it all was. The streets and buildings were all so familiar, yet nothing was really the same. She was on the other side of the law now, no longer a scrumrat lurking in the shadows. And she was with people she trusted now. That was something she could never have said before.

Cara had been keeping a close eye on her (as much as she could when they mostly patrolled different streets) and was pleased to see she was keeping it together. At night they’d talk about Rylan’s experiences growing up, and for the first time the Alderaanian understood the extent of her trauma. Ry had never had a real family, at least not that she remembered for anything more than giving her a name. It had been the streets for her from the beginning, running with the other scrumrats, scavenging and stealing to survive. Her story was as different from Cara’s as it could have possibly been, and yet they were able to empathize with each other’s losses completely.

The commander was glad the rest of the team was doing their part to keep things light around Rylan during their time on Corellia. There had been many jokes and comments about their relationship, now that it was common knowledge (not that it ever wasn’t -- Keoni had won the bet between all of them about when the pair would actually admit it). As all they drank and chatted in yet another random bar, Cara watched with quiet appreciation while Rylan joked with the others.

They were packed tightly around a high table, all of them standing in the crowded bar filled with every type of sentient imaginable. As they shouted to each other over the music and chatter, their shoulders were continuously bumped by other patrons passing by.

“So you were one of those punks out there picking people’s pockets?” Lio inquired alliteratively. They’d spent the better part of a week running scrumrats away from the general population, but being kind about it in deference to the one in their midst.

“I wasn’t just one of them, I was one of the best of them,” Rylan corrected.

“Don’t worry, she’s not actually as proud of that as she sounds,” Cara said when Maggi made a face.

“I would be,” said Timber. “That’s a great skill to have in your back pocket.”

The rest of the group groaned at the pun but Rylan laughed. “I have to agree. It’s one thing I learned here that has served me well at times.”

“Can you still do it?” asked Dalla.

“I dunno, ask Keoni,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the lieutenant to her right.

“Huh?” he said.

Rylan brought her other hand up to reveal the credit pouch she’d swiped from his pocket a minute earlier. The droppers roared with delighted, drunken laughter.

“That’s crazy,” Keoni said as Ry tossed his pouch back to him. “You gotta show me how to do that.”

“Nah, I really shouldn’t,” she said, waving him off. “Can’t guarantee you’d use it for good. Plus, not just everybody has the innate ability, you know?”

“Aw, come on, Killis,” Lio urged. “Share with the team. Your commander commands it.”

Rylan turned to her left to look at her other commander. Cara just rolled her eyes as if to say she didn’t approve of all this nonsense but wasn’t going to stop it.

“Well, far be it from me to disobey orders,” the Corellian said, to a chorus of cheers from the squad. “Keoni, will you volunteer to be my victim?”

“Oh, I get a choice this time? That’s nice. Of course I will.”

“Alright so, rules and then demonstration.” She backed them up away from the table a couple feet so the others could see, bumping into multiple people passing behind them in the process. “So, rule number one is pick the right target. Never pick somebody that could kick your ass, obviously.”

“Or shoot you,” said Timber.

“I think that’s included in kicking your ass,” Dalla added.

“Sure,” Rylan said, aware that her lesson was already off the rails. “Also - and this is a personal rule of mine - never pick someone who can’t stand to lose what you’re trying to take.”

“How are you supposed to know that?” Herk asked.

“If you have to ask, you should already know the answer,” Maggi pointed out.

“Exactly. And finally, never pick someone who knows they’re being picked,” she said as a slim woman brushed past her with the slightest of touches. Rylan reached back and caught her without looking as she finished speaking, holding up the woman’s arm. In her pale hand was the credit pouch usually at home in Rylan’s inside jacket pocket. “Like that. Thank you so much for demonstrating to my friends what not to--”

She stopped short as the woman whirled around to face her, bright red hair matching her angry expression. Rylan stared in disbelief.

“Bria?”

The woman stopped trying to pull away from the captain’s grasp. “Ry?”

The rest of the droppers just looked at each other in confusion, except for Cara, whose eyebrows raised with interest at the apparent reunion.

Rylan released the woman’s arm, immediately regretting it as she was slapped in the side of the face with its full force.

~

Cara could tell the blonde Corellian was trying her hardest not to rub her face where she’d been slapped as they sat at a table in a diner across from the red-headed woman. The rest of the squad had left them to sort it out, after being assured that the woman didn’t intend to do any more harm to their fellow trooper.

“Sorry about your face,” the woman, Bria, said.

Rylan squinted. “Are you?”

She thought about it for a second. “No, not really.”

“Great to see you too, Bria.”

“Well, what do you expect, Ry? A welcome back kiss?”

Rylan groaned inwardly, suddenly wishing Cara wasn’t there for this chat. Not that there was any way in hell she could have stopped her from coming. “Of course not. Just didn’t think I really deserved that sort of welcome.”

“Well you don’t know what you left me with - without a word, I might add,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “So who’s your friend here?”

Cara snorted and Rylan looked up as if to ask the heavens why this was happening to her. She draped her arm across the back of the booth behind the commander. 

“This is Cara Dune. We’re….” she hesitated, looking to Cara for help but finding none. They hadn’t exactly had a conversation about what they were, so she wasn’t sure what word was the right one to describe their relationship. “Partners,” she tried, eyes still on Cara, who made a look that said that was acceptable. “We’re partners.”

She turned back to Bria, who looked at them with a cocked eyebrow over the brim of her coffee cup. “Pleasure.”

“A-and this- this is Bria,” Rylan stammered to Cara by way of introduction the other direction.

“Charmed,” the Alderaanian said with a tight lipped smile. “So, you two….grew up together?”

Rylan started to speak but Bria jumped in quicker. “Oh yeah, we go back a long ways. I taught Ry here everything she knows.”

Cara turned to look pointedly at the captain, who suddenly found the patterns on the table incredibly interesting and began tracing them with her fingers. “I mean….’everything’ might be a little much. I-I did...learn some things on my own. Along the way…”

“I’m sure you did,” Cara said, looking back at the other woman. “Recently, even.”

Rylan coughed loudly and snapped back to full attention. “So, Bria, what have you been up to?”

“Oh, nothing as exciting as this. Not in a long time,” she said, finally letting a small smile cross her face as she watched Ry squirm. “Just the usual, you know. Picking the occasional pocket, working the factory line, betting on the swoop races.”

“Ah, you have something in common,” Rylan said to Cara, who glared sideways at her.

“You work a line too?” Bria asked, knowing the answer.

“Uh, no,” Cara replied. “Gambler. Formerly.”

“Well, we oughta go down to the races while you’re all here,” the redhead suggested. “That is if we can keep this one off a swoop. Would probably take a new war to get her back off.”

“I fly a little higher these days,” Rylan said, although she had to admit she missed the thrill of a good swoop race.

“Yeah, that’s what I hear,” Bria said. “At least, that was the last I heard about you before today. Rylan Killis, flying off to the Imperial Academy.”

“You mean the Rebel Alliance,” Cara corrected.

“That’s not what I heard,” Bria said, her eyes focused on Rylan, whose face had turned to a hard glare.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Bria,” she said quietly.

“Maybe I don’t,” the redhead conceded, standing up and placing some credits on the table. “Well, this has been fun but I’ve gotta get going. Night shift. Those ships aren’t gonna build themselves. Come by the races tomorrow if you’re bored.”

She sauntered away, leaving the two droppers sitting silently together.

Rylan chewed on the inside of her cheek as Cara slipped across to the other side of the booth to look at her. “Wanna tell me what that was all about?” the Alderaanian asked.

“She doesn’t have the whole story,” Ry said.

“I sure hope she doesn’t,” Cara snapped. “Here I’ve been, believing you got away from here because you joined the Alliance, and come to find out you did a stop as an Imp first? Were you ever gonna tell me this or were you just waiting for the day we’d bump into your ex-girlfriend to let her bring it up?”

“Cara, that’s-- no. That’s not what happened,” she said, sighing and covering her face with her hands. “Look, you’re right, I should have told you before now. But it’s not exactly an easy thing to bring up. Not something I’m proud of.”

Cara gripped her coffee cup so tightly Rylan was afraid she’d shatter it to pieces. “You better get it all out right now, Killis.”

The Corellian took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. “Okay, so I told you the Alliance recruited me here a couple of years before Yavin, right? Well, that was true. Only I didn’t get recruited to fly. It was an added asset, but….they really wanted me for my other skills.”

She dropped her eyes to stare at the table, retracing the patterns again. “Those things we talked about before - the terrible things people do to each other that I know how to do - that’s why they wanted me. That’s how I could help, they told me. And I wanted to help, so, I agreed.

“They sent me to the Imperial Academy as a spy. It was just like being a scrumrat. You blend in. You play a character. You listen. You learn. You take what you hear from the people around you and you use it against them. And I was listening to important people in the Empire. Officers were in and out of there all the time, teaching classes and everything. And they loved to talk. So, I always had something to hear, something to report back to the Alliance,” she said, still staring off somewhere far away.

“But after a year I couldn’t take it anymore. All those awful lessons and awful people. They were monsters, every one of them. One night I just snapped. Broke out of my room, snuck down to the hanger, and stole a TIE,” she laughed to herself. “When I made it to the Rebel base, they didn’t even seem surprised. Apparently they had to install new spies every year for the same reason, most of them from Corellia or similar places. Only one or two had ever made it to graduation.

“Bria heard that I went to the Academy because that was the only thing I was allowed to tell anybody when I left. No one here knew a thing about me being recruited by the Alliance, they just knew I wanted to fly. So it made perfect sense I’d sign up for the navy,” Rylan explained, finally looking back up at Cara. “Had I known that we would one day bump into this particular ex-girlfriend, I probably would have told her what was really up.”

She ended with an attempt at a grin, hoping Cara would appreciate the humor. But the Alderaanian was wearing her best sabacc face, completely unreadable.

“You got any other ex-girlfriends running around here with big secrets about you?” Cara asked flatly, catching Rylan completely off-guard.

“Uhh, no. That’s it,” she said. _Thank the stars_.

“Good,” the commander said. She reached across the table to grab Ry’s hand and squeezed it. Hard. “Because if I have to find out something like that from another girl again, they’re not gonna be the only one slapping you that night.”

She let go of her hand and stood up to go, leaving Rylan at the booth to bang her head on the table lightly before following.

~

One mention of the swoop races was all it took for the team to jump at the opportunity to do something besides find a new bar the next night.

Rylan led them to the track and over to the bleachers, where she knew Bria would likely be hanging out if she meant for Ry to find her. The redhead greeted them warmly, apologizing for the scene she made the night before.

“No, we loved it!” said Timber. “Been too long since we got to watch someone knock the crap out of the captain here. Right Cara?”

The commander smirked at him and Rylan sighed loudly. “I knew coming back to this planet was a bad idea.”

They all sat around in a section of empty bleachers, chatting while they waited for the races to get started. Much to Rylan’s dismay, Bria had plenty of embarrassing stories to share with them. She was grateful for the reprieve when the announcer came over the loudspeaker to broadcast the start of the first race and their focus shifted to placing bets on the action.

After the first couple of races came and went, Bria broke away from the rest of the unit to approach Cara and Rylan, who were sitting a row behind the rest of them.

“Mind if I steal this one for a bit? Thought we could go grab everybody some drinks,” she said to Cara.

“Just what this crowd needs,” the commander said with a nod and a smile. Rylan got up to follow Bria but Cara grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her down to talk out of the redhead’s earshot. “Thief or not, she is not allowed to ‘steal’ you for longer than five minutes.”

“First of all, she’s only a part-time pickpocket, not a thief,” Rylan explained, to which Cara rolled her eyes, “And do I detect a hint of jealousy, Commander Dune?”

“Jealousy?” Cara echoed. “I don’t know where you learned to detect things, Captain Killis. Must have been Empire school.”

Rylan laughed. “Riiight. I’m sure it’s just my imagination,” she said, pausing to give her a kiss before standing up. “Don’t worry. You’re the only one that can steal my heart.”

The two Corellians climbed the bleachers in silence, but Bria spoke up as soon as they reached the concourse.

“I have to admit, I didn’t get it at first,” she said. “Thought she wasn’t your type.”

“My type? I don’t have a type,” Rylan protested.

“But now I see,” Bria continued, ignoring her. “She really gets you.”

“Well she gets me a lot better after last night, thanks to your big mouth,” Ry snarked. “But yeah, we….we have a lot in common.”

“You seem like you’re happy.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am,” she admitted, surprising herself with how easily she came to the conclusion. “I love her.”

“‘Love’? That’s a pretty big word for you, isn’t it? I don’t remember ever hearing that,” she teased, and Rylan began to protest - their relationship had never been that serious. “I’m just messing with you, Ry. Clearly this is different.”

She went to the counter to order drinks and Rylan thought about what she said. It was different. Everything was different. She may have been back home, hanging around with an old friend, visiting an old haunt, ordering the old drinks, but everything she felt was new. Her whole life had changed when she left Corellia, and it changed again when she met Cara. This place was the same, Bria was the same, but Rylan was different. And she was proud of herself for that.

“Yeah, it’s different,” she said. “And so am I.”

“I know,” Bria said, patting her on the arm. “I’m glad.”

~

As the shock troopers boarded the transport shuttle back to base two weeks later, Rylan couldn’t help but take one last look out over the capital city.

She’d never expected that leaving Corellia would make her feel anything other than relief, but a wave of conflicting emotions washed over her as the ship door hissed closed.

“You gonna come get settled or are you just gonna stare at that door?” Cara said behind her.

Rylan shrugged. “I dunno. It’s not a bad door. As far as doors go.”

“I guess so. Just thought there might be….other things on this ship you’d prefer to stare at for the ride back.”

Ry’s eyebrows raised of their own volition and she turned around to find her partner already walking away toward the shuttle’s common room.

They sat together in a quiet corner as the ship took off from the planet’s surface, and Cara watched Rylan stare down at Corellia from the viewport as they ascended into space.

“I’m guessing this feels a little different from the last time you left?”

Ry chuckled. “More than a little.” She turned her back to the window and wrapped an arm around Cara’s shoulders.

“Yeah, you don’t have to leave your girl behind this time,” the commander teased.

The Corellian sighed dramatically. “I’m never gonna hear the end of that whole thing, am I?”

“Absolutely not.”

They sat in silence for most of the ride back to base, lost in thought, enjoying the prospect of having some time off again now that their latest round of assignments was up. Rylan had picked out Takodana as their next destination to try out. But as much as she was looking forward to that, she couldn’t help but think about what was behind.

She knew Corellia could never be her home again, but for the first time in years, she thought it might not be so bad to go back and visit from time to time. As long as she had Cara by her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The decision to name Ry’s ex Bria is an homage to the AC Crispin Han Solo novels, not just a result of me not being able to think of an original name. Yep, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.


	4. The Challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rylan gets a secret mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of shot them ahead in the timeline just a bit but I reserve the right to come back to an earlier time later. That's the Star Wars way, after all.

“You know, when I said...I was excited to have….some alone time with you…” Rylan said between heavy breaths, “this is not exactly….what I had in mind…”

Cara just grinned at her slyly, a thin layer of sweat glistening on her forehead. “Oh, I know exactly what you had in mind, Killis.”

“Right….And why couldn’t we...do that?” she heaved, still unable to catch her breath.

“Because I know for a fact you wouldn’t train on your own if I didn’t make you,” the commander said, moving into position to start another round of exercises. “Now come on. You beat me on this circuit and we can share the shower when we’re done.”

Even with the best motivation she could imagine, Rylan couldn’t come close to beating her.

She hadn’t finished pouting by the time Cara emerged from the refresher unit alone. “That was a really cruel offer to make when you knew I wouldn’t beat you,” she whined, still covered in dried sweat from their workout.

“Well, that’s part of your problem right there,” Cara said, standing in front of the seated Corellian, wearing nothing but a towel. “It wasn’t an offer, it was a challenge.”

Rylan did her best to maintain eye contact despite the overwhelming urge to explore all the exposed skin in front of her. “A challenge, huh? Why do I get the feeling I’m in the middle of another one of those right now?”

“Of course you’re not, I wouldn’t do that to you twice in one day,” Cara said, lifting Ry’s chin when her eyes drifted downward. “Not after you failed so miserably the first time.”

Rylan grumbled. “Well, aren’t you charitable?” She started to reach for the towel, but the Alderaanian swatted her hand away.

“Not that charitable,” she warned, leaning down to kiss her partner long and hard. “Gotta earn that.”

“Now see, that sounds like a chal--” Rylan’s retort was cut off by another kiss, and she finally realized it was time to shut up.

Cara eased her back slowly onto the bed, the towel somehow still clinging to her soft curves. Rylan soon found herself out of breath again, but this time for much more enjoyable reasons. Just as she thought she was earning the removal of the towel, though, a voice on her comlink ruined the moment.

“Killis, report to the briefing room ASAP,” they heard Lio say. “Repeat: report to briefing room ASAP.”

The Corellian growled and cursed as the two separated reluctantly. “Back to the grind already?” she said, sitting up and reaching for the comlink. “Is your com busted? Why’s he calling me?”

“Worked just fine last I checked,” Cara replied, moving to find her clothes.

“Huh,” Ry said before speaking into her com, “Yeah, we’ll be right there Lio.”

“No, not ‘we,’ Killis. Just you.”

The two of them looked at each other in confusion. “Say again, commander?” Rylan requested into the comlink.

“Just get your ass over here, and don’t bring Dune.”

The captain frowned. “Roger that.”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Cara teased.

_Someone’s going to be_ , Rylan thought bitterly as she changed out of her workout clothes and left to report to the briefing room. With all the assignments they’d had in recent weeks, there hadn’t been many opportunities for the two of them to be alone for any significant amount of time. They took advantage of stolen moments when they could and tried not to complain, but it just wasn’t the same as when they were on the _Echo_ or whatever world they were trying out. They couldn’t get enough of each other, and the stolen moments weren’t adding up sufficiently.

Rylan tried her hardest to clear her head of those thoughts as she entered the briefing room. She found Lio, as expected, along with Keoni and Maggi.

“What’s this, the party planning committee?” she quipped. “Not sure I’m qualified for that.”

“Not quite, hotshot,” Lio said. “New assignment came down.”

“Just for us?” asked Maggi. “What about the others?”

“They’ll have their own orders. This is a special mission for the four of us,” the commander replied. Rylan crossed her arms and looked around at the small group, wondering what kind of special mission would call for the three most inexperienced droppers and their veteran commander. “Look, we’re shipping out for Nar Shaddaa tonight. I’ll give you the details on the way.”

“Nar Shaddaa?” Keoni echoed. “What are we doing in Hutt Space?”

“Details on the way, K,” Lio repeated. “And this is need-to-know right now. No telling the rest of the team where we’re going.”

He and the others all looked at Rylan in unison. She scoffed and threw up her hands. “Okay, I get it. ‘Don’t tell Cara.’”

“Right,” Lio said with an unconvinced smirk. “Go pack your gear and meet me in hangar two in ten minutes.”

He marched out, the twin siblings close behind him. The Corellian stood there stunned. “Ten minutes?”

_Guess I am the one in trouble after all_.

As expected, Cara didn’t take the news well.

“What the hell kind of job could you be doing that you couldn’t tell me about?” she demanded as Rylan scurried around throwing gear into her bag.

“Beats me.”

“Well where are you going?”

“I’m not allowed to say. Lio was very specific on that point,” Rylan said with an amused shake of her head.

“How long is it going to take?” Cara continued with her line of questioning.

“I have no idea,” she said, stuffing the last of her junk into her rucksack. “Babe look, I only got five more minutes and it’s gonna take three of those to get over to the hangar.”

Cara got the message and pulled the Corellian in for a hug. They held each other tightly for a full minute, both wondering how long it would be before they’d be able to again.

“You were right,” Cara mumbled into Rylan’s neck.

“I’m sorry, what was that? A very unfamiliar sentence, not sure I heard you correctly.”

“You were right,” she repeated. “We should have done what you wanted to do with our alone time.”

“Never thought you’d regret a workout, huh?” Ry teased, earning a soft punch in the ribs.

“You better not make me regret skipping one when you get back,” Cara warned.

Rylan laughed. “I would never.”

Cara grabbed her by the jacket to kiss her, and she decided the trip to the hangar would only take two minutes if she sprinted.

~

Rylan skidded into hangar two and checked her watch, panting. “Ha. Right on time.”

“Damn,” Keoni exclaimed, slapping some credits into his sister’s outstretched hand. “I was so sure you’d be late.”

“Is there anything about me that this team doesn’t bet on?”

“If I told you, it would ruin another bet,” Maggi said with a wink.

The Corellian rolled her eyes as Lio emerged from the freighter docked in the hangar and approached them. “Alright children, playtime’s over. Focus up.”

“Yes, Dad,” the three of them said in unison. Lio was only about 10 years older than the rest of the doppers, but between his gray hair and his long history as a soldier, earning the nickname had been unavoidable. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Cute,” he said. “Sorry for the quick turnaround and the secrecy, but this job is coming from way above me. Hop onboard and I’ll explain on the way.”

“Where’s the drop ship?” Keoni asked, looking around.

“Oh,” Lio said. “Almost forgot, no drop ship on this one. Captain Killis, I’m told you should know your way around the cockpit of one of these?”

Rylan raised an eyebrow and smiled slowly as she examined the ship behind him. The freighter was a fairly new model, so she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. But it was Corellian, and that was good enough. “Suddenly I love this mission.”

Later, as she engaged the freighter’s hyperdrive and sat back in the pilot’s chair to watch the familiar blue clouds speed by, she tried to recall the last time she’d flown without Cara by her side. Lio was a knowledgeable and capable co-pilot, but his presence didn’t exactly fill her with the same joy as her partner’s.

Her second-favorite commander took note of her uncharacteristic silence. “Missing your much better half already, aren’t you Killis?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“I know I’m missing her,” Keoni said as he and Maggi entered the cockpit. “How’d we get stuck with the weak half of the dynamic duo?”

Rylan spun the pilot’s chair around to glare at him. “It’s obviously one commander to a team, K. You should be asking yourself how you got stuck with Lio.”

“Ha, ha,” the older man laughed sarcastically.

“Well, we do still need to know why we’re all stuck together for whatever this is,” Maggi reminded him.

“I was just getting to that,” Lio said, turning his own chair around so they were all facing each other. “Taking a break from shock trooper duties for a little while. The Alliance caught wind of a rumor that the Hutts are working with an Imperial remnant in the Outer Rim, moving weapons or ships or equipment of some kind. But they don’t know where or what or even if it’s true, so they need recon. They need a crew to get in with the Hutts and their smuggling ring to gather some intel.”

“And we’re that crew?” Rylan guessed.

“We’re that crew,” Lio nodded. “All of you have experience in intelligence or undercover operations. We should be able to get the information we need in no time. If there’s anything to know.”

“And how will we know if there’s anything to know?” asked Keoni.

Lio shrugged. “I guess we’ll know when we know.”

Rylan shook her head, both in confusion and frustration. “How exactly is this under our team’s responsibilities at all? My time undercover was like, three jobs ago. What, does the Alliance not have enough current spies?”

“Apparently not.”

“Since the conflict has been winding down, a lot of them have transitioned to leadership roles,” Keoni explained as the one always up-to-date on the latest news, “or into the New Republic government.”

“Oh, well that’s reassuring,” Rylan said ironically. Spies running the government? Surely nothing could go wrong there.

“Doesn’t matter. This is our job and we’re gonna do it well and quickly so we can get back to the rest of the team. Right?” the commander asked. He looked each of them in the eye in turn and they all nodded.

“Good thing this is a fast ship,” Rylan said.

~

It had been a week since Cara’s partner had run off on some secret mission, and the Alderaanian was beginning to grow restless without her.

She tried not to worry -- Rylan could take care of herself, she had for many years before meeting Cara -- but the longer the other half of their unit was gone, the more anxious she was becoming. They were soldiers. The very nature of their job was dangerous. And, she’d noticed, the best fighters and sharpshooters of the crew had been left behind. Whatever Rylan and the others were off doing, it must not have been their usual work.

Meanwhile, their usual work had continued. Cara, Timber, Dalla, and Herk had been dispatched and returned twice already. Both times the commander had prayed their counterparts would be waiting at the base when they got back, but both times she was disappointed.

It wasn’t lost on Cara that this was already the longest she and Rylan had been apart since they’d met. For the better part of a year now, they had rarely gone even a full day without seeing each other. Now it had been a full week, with no end in sight, and Cara was not a fan. Being without Rylan for a while was probably good for her, she had to admit, but it was a harsh reminder of how utterly alone she was in this vast galaxy. The other droppers were her only friends, and the Corellian, she had come to realize, was her only family.

Cara tried her best to stay busy when they weren’t working, to keep her mind occupied on something besides worrying and missing her partner. Thankfully, Timber had proven to be good at helping with that. “Major Muscles,” as Rylan had taken to calling him, was the only member of the unit that could keep up with the commander in the training room, and the two of them spent hours and hours there over the course of the week. But even more, Timber was a good listener and keen observer. He could tell when her anxiety was spiking almost as well as Rylan could, and he was always quick to suggest a new activity when it happened.

Which was how she now found herself drinking with the rest of their half of the team in the base’s common room.

“And that,” the major said, finishing a drink and a story, “was the last time I’ll ever date a Mirialan girl.”

Cara joined Herk and Dalla in laughing at his anecdote as he smiled widely.

Dalla raised her bottle of ale in a toast. “The perils of inter-species relationships.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Herk agreed.

“What about you, Cara?” the Twi’lek asked. “You ever date a non-human?”

“What are you talking about? She is right now,” Timber said with a wide grin.

The Alderaanian just shook her head and rolled her eyes. Despite his constant teasing, she knew Timber was the one on the team who was most happy for her and Rylan.

“That might as well be true,” she said. “We don’t make a lot of sense at first glance, do we?”

Cara and Rylan were living proof of the theory that opposites attract. Aside from their physical differences -- the Alderaanian was dark and burly, the Corellian bright and wiry -- their personalities were as unsimilar as they could be. Cara was shy and quiet, reluctant to talk about anything, much less herself. Rylan was a veritable chatterbox, and a brash one at that. Crashing her X-wing had knocked her filter loose, she liked to say, leading her to blurt out basically whatever she was thinking at any given time.

But as different as they were on the outside, at heart they were the same. They were two lonely souls, just trying to find a place to belong in the galaxy. And with every passing day, it was more and more clear that that place was with each other.

“Considering how you welcomed her to the team, definitely not,” Dalla said with a laugh, recalling Ry’s first day on the job.

“Are you kidding?” Timber said. “I’m sure that’s exactly the moment that laser brain fell in love.”

Cara laughed and shook her head, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t believe that was true.

~

Rylan tossed and turned in the unfamiliar bunk on the ship that had been her home for the last three weeks. Sleep had been hard to come by, and not just because the makeshift crew was constantly on the move. The Corellian was embarrassed to admit it, but she just couldn’t fall asleep anymore without the assurance that Cara was nearby.

The mission itself was going fine. They’d easily passed the Hutts’ test of their skill and been hired on a few smuggling runs, which they completed without incident. And Keoni -- the tech expert of the dropper squad -- had found a way to hack a communications line out of the gangsters’ headquarters. The only problem with that was that none of them spoke Huttese, so they had to transmit the recorded conversations back to the Alliance and await news on the translations that followed.

In the meantime, they transported whatever contraband they were given to the various worlds where the crime lords did their business. Rylan didn’t feel great about it and didn’t like the familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach that she’d had during her time at the Imperial Academy, but she tried to remember that it was for the greater good. At least, she hoped it was. If it turned out the rumors that brought them there weren’t true, then they’d just spent weeks helping gangsters do crime when they could have been out helping good people elsewhere.

Giving up on the idea of sleep, Rylan dragged herself from the bunk and out to the ship’s kitchen area. She jumped and yelped in surprise as a voice cut through the silence of the dark room to greet her.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” Maggi asked, already sitting at the small table in the middle of the room.

“Kriffing hell, Mags. You must have been a damn good spy,” the Corellian said. “Creepin’ around in the shadows and all.”

The smaller woman laughed. “Sorry, Ry. Didn’t know you were so jumpy.”

“It’s called ‘being on guard,’ thank you.”

“Sure,” Maggi said as Rylan took a seat across from her. “Have you been getting _any_ sleep?”

Rylan chuckled at how quickly the motherly question came up. “I’m too tired to remember.”

“Have you always had trouble with it on assignments?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s a….pretty recent development,” she said, staring at the table and wondering if and how Cara was sleeping without her.

“Not used to sleeping alone anymore, huh?” Maggi guessed. “I know that feeling.”

Rylan looked sympathetically at her. There was a reason Maggi had a motherly personality -- she was one. When she’d joined the Alliance she had made the impossible decision to spend months at a time away from her husband and two children on Bespin. She often joked that the reason she was so motherly toward the rest of the team was just so she didn’t get rusty in between times she saw her real kids.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Ry said with a shake of her head. She was struggling after not seeing Cara for three weeks. Maggi had gone as long as a standard year without seeing her family at one point.

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier,” the lieutenant said. “Missing the people you love….it’s always hard.”

“I’ve never missed anyone before now,” Rylan admitted quietly. It was true. She’d never been close enough to anyone to feel sad about not being around them anymore. Not the parents she’d never known, not Bria, not any of the other people she’d filled her life with on a temporary basis to keep from getting bored. 

As sweet as it was to have someone now that she cared about and loved enough to miss, it was also terrifying. Could she handle it if something were to happen to Cara? If they got separated for more than just a quick job? Those were the questions that had been keeping her up. For the first time since they’d gotten together she was afraid, questioning just what she’d gotten herself into.

This job couldn’t end soon enough.

~

Cara and Timber were engaged in a stalemate of an arm-wrestling match when the news of their compatriots’ return came in.

“They’re back!” Dalla announced to the burly droppers, stopping only momentarily on her way to the hangar. The two of them jumped to their feet and raced after her, the twenty credits to be had by the winner already forgotten completely.

Maggi and Keoni were the first two off the freighter as it touched down, and Lio was close behind. Dalla and Timber greeted them with hugs and questions, but Cara just stared at the opening, waiting to see the bright-eyed face she’d been missing for a month.

Finally Rylan stepped off the ship with her rucksack over her shoulder, her eyes finding Cara’s in an instant. She looked tired, the commander noted, but it was still the same face that made her heart leap with joy.

Rylan dropped her bag as the two came together in the tightest of hugs. She breathed deeply for the first time in weeks and realized just how much she’d missed even the scent of her partner. She'd missed Cara’s strong arms around her, the warmth of her embrace, the dimpled smile she wore when they looked into each other’s eyes. She never wanted to be away from any of that for so long again.

They kissed each other eagerly, trying to convey a month’s worth of feelings in one gesture.

“Oh, get a room already!” Timber said, prompting an elbow to the ribs from Dalla.

“Aw come on, Major Muscles. Thought you were on my team here,” Rylan complained.

“Alright, let’s go grab a debrief drink and then we can all go home to our own rooms for a few months,” Lio said, much to the droppers’ delight. They’d expected to be on duty for another couple of weeks, so the news that they’d be going on leave early was a pleasant surprise after a stressful month.

Cara and Rylan sat as close together as humanly possible as the shock troopers drank and chatted in the common room about their recent adventures. The undercover smuggling mission had been a success, finally. After about a dozen minor runs for the Hutts, they’d been given the job they were waiting for. They loaded a huge shipment of weapons and coaxium from Nar Shaddaa and were meant to fly to Nimia, but on the way the Alliance translation confirmed they were about to deliver to an Imperial remnant. Ry had turned the ship around immediately and the four of them delivered it instead to the good guys.

“Our poor aliases definitely have huge bounties out on them by now,” Keoni said, grinning proudly.

“Yeah, and they’re gonna have to dump that beautiful ship,” Rylan added with a frown. It wasn't the _Echo_ , but she'd grown attached to the freighter -- and realized that in another life she would have made a natural smuggler.

The team dispersed as the stories and drinks dried up, telling each other to keep in touch over the next few months. When they finally got back to their bunk, Rylan and Cara wasted no time getting down to the business they’d been missing for the last four weeks -- aside from the few seconds the Corellian stupidly took to ask if they should hit the gym first.

Two hours later they laid there exhaustedly together. Back in Cara’s arms, Rylan could have fallen asleep in an instant. But she willed herself to stay awake, to not take the moment for granted. She vowed to never take another moment for granted.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I _never_ want to do that again.”

“Wow, Ry. Sure didn’t seem like you were having such a bad time when we wer--”

“I meant being apart for a month!”

“That’s what I thought. And no, I don’t either,” the commander said. She rolled over so that they were facing each other, and Rylan momentarily forgot how to breathe as Cara touched her cheek tenderly. “I miss this face when you’re gone.”

“Well don’t you worry, baby,” Ry said with a smile. “You’re stuck with this face for a long, long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm running out of ideas that I'm really excited about so updates might be more rare for a while. But I'm always thinking about these two so who knows.


	5. The Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ry makes a bet. Cara receives an invitation.

If there was one thing Cara found unfortunate about Maz Kanata’s castle, it was the strict “no fighting” rule.

She understood it of course -- it prevented what would surely have been a lot of brawls and kept a lot of people safe from bounty hunters and vengeful foes -- but sometimes a head just begged to be hit with a fist. And by her nature, Cara was always eager to oblige when one did.

Thankfully, there had been plenty of other regular patrons of Maz’s over the years who shared Cara's belief that cracking skulls was the best form of therapy. Long ago -- centuries before she and Rylan had landed on Takodana -- they’d built their own little arena of sorts on the shores of Nymeve Lake, right next door to the castle. In truth it was nothing more than a section of sand closed off by a ring of boulders, with more boulders stacked nearby where onlookers could sit and watch as two stupid sentients beat the hell out of each other for fun. But it was Cara’s favorite place on the planet.

Except for their little camp next to the _Echo_ , of course. If it was Ry asking, anyway.

Cara had already won half a dozen fights in the Pit, as it was known, and she was busy psyching herself up for yet another. Rylan stood watching from the opposite side of the ring with a mixture of pride and arousal as the Alderaanian hopped around on the balls of her feet and shadowboxed an invisible opponent. The look in her partner’s eye when she was in a fight was unlike any she wore at other times. It was similar to the one she had in battle -- focused and intense -- but that one was tinged with anger and hurt, whereas this look carried a hint of wild enjoyment. If Rylan didn’t know any better, that look would have scared the hell out of her.

It didn’t seem to scare her newest opponent, though. The Devaronian didn’t even bother to stretch after finding out he’d be fighting a mere human, and a female one at that. Rylan smiled slyly as she watched him play to the crowd with the confidence of a man who had no idea what was coming to him.

“Two hundred credits on the Dev,” a dark-haired man standing next to her said to another man by his side.

“Do I look stupid to you?” the larger of them said. “Might as well throw two hundred credits into the bottom of the lake.”

Rylan laughed to herself. They must have been as new here as the Devaronian. Sure, he had about a foot on Cara and must have outweighed her by almost as much as Ry weighed herself. But she’d seen her partner take down bigger beasts than him with ease -- and so had plenty of other regulars at the Pit.

“I’ll take that action,” she said, inserting herself into their conversation with a sideways glance. “Two hundred, on the pretty one.”

The dark-haired man accepted her handshake to seal the bet while his companion scoffed. “Someone’s got credits to burn,” he said.

Rylan nodded and smirked. “Someone does.”

A horn blew to start the fight and the Devaronian roared as he rushed at Cara and took a wild swing at her head. She ducked his fist gracefully and drove her knee up into his gut as he passed. Rylan glanced at the man beside her, who winced. “Lucky shot,” he said.

The Devaronian continued his roar-and-rush strategy for a minute before realizing he hadn’t yet landed a blow. He danced toe to toe with Cara and finally found his mark with a couple of glancing jabs. She took them in the face with hardly a flinch.

“That all you got?” she taunted. Her biceps flexed as she gave him a gesture to come and get it, and Rylan had to bite down on her lip so she didn’t groan in the middle of a bunch of strangers.

Cara’s opponent didn’t take her taunt well. He reared back for another swing at her, and she planted her feet in the sand and took it full in the jaw. Rylan could practically feel her own mushy brain rattle around in her head, but Cara shook it off with a wicked smile.

_Oh, this poor man_.

Rylan had seen the Alderaanian fight enough times to know what was coming next. Cara wouldn’t let herself loose in a fight, wouldn’t really go in for the kill, until she took at least one good hit. Until she was hurt. Pain fueled her, and getting punched in the head by a huge Devaronian was certainly painful.

Before he got a chance to stand all the way up from his follow-through, Cara attacked. She whirled and kicked him in the side of the head, causing him to stumble. As he reeled, she beat down on his horned skull with her gloved fists. 

The Devaronian somehow managed to grab her and throw her to the sand, pausing to spit out a mouthful of black blood as she recovered. Unsympathetic, Cara ran at him and launched herself into the air, wrapping a leg around his neck and using her momentum to twist him down.

“What in the kriffing hell?” the dark-haired man exclaimed, mouth agape as Cara put the Devaronian in a choke hold from behind. He only lasted another second or two before admitting it was over, ending the fight with a pair of weak taps to her shock trooper stripes.

“That’s my girl!” Rylan whooped and applauded along with most of the audience, then turned to the man next to her with a shrug. He handed over the credits with a scowl and walked away with his friend without another word. “Thanks for coming.”

Cara approached her, having finished her victory lap. “Hustled another newbie, did you?”

“Just trying to do my part,” Rylan said, kissing her favorite fighter proudly. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

~

Cara’s latest victory was toasted to inside the castle after the sun set and the other fights wrapped up. She and Rylan had made some friends in other regular patrons over the months they’d spent on Takodana. They were mostly other veterans, older ones who’d retired after Endor or Jakku, and they all had enough stories to last a lifetime.

It was a crowd that drank heavily and conversed lightly, not big on dwelling on the losses they’d all sustained over their careers. Because -- if they were being honest -- once that started, it would never end.

As the hour got late and the others filed out, Cara and Rylan were left alone at their regular round booth in the corner. They talked softly and laughed loudly and kissed unabashedly, as if they were the only ones there in the giant room. 

Fuzzy from their drinks and their general euphoria over the current state of their lives, they almost didn’t notice when the servant droid placed another round on their table.

“Oh, we didn’t order those,” Rylan told it as Cara’s lips made their way down the side of her neck. More drinks were the last thing they needed -- what they needed was to get out of there and back to their camp before they did something completely inappropriate for such a public place.

“They are a gift from that gentleman at the bar,” the droid informed her before rolling away.

Rylan reluctantly turned away from her over-eager partner to look toward the bar, where a light-haired man waved at her with his own drink and grinned.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said, waving him over.

“What?” Cara asked groggily as Rylan pulled away from her slightly and sat up straight. “Hey, get back here.”

The Corellian laughed. “Easy, hot stuff. Gotta talk to an old friend and then we can pick that right back up, I promise.”

She winked and kissed her on the forehead before standing up to greet the familiar face.

“Rylan Killis, as I live and breathe!” the man exclaimed, hugging her warmly.

“Tycho Celchu,” she said, smiling. “It’s been too long, brother.”

“Might not have been if I’d known you were still around,” he said. Rylan gave him a confused look as they both sat down in the booth. “Somebody told me you were dead!”

“What? Who told you that?”

“I don’t remember, somebody in Gold squadron probably. I was looking for you before Endor but somebody said you’d got shot down,” he explained.

Rylan chuckled. “Oh, okay. Well, you got it half right. They shot me down but couldn’t kill me.”

“Ah, well,” Tycho said, addressing Cara, “lucky for us, huh?”

“Yeeeeah….” Cara said, still trying to catch up on what exactly was going on.

“Kriff, sorry,” Rylan said. “Tych, this is Cara Dune, my partner. Cara, this is Tycho Celchu. We used to fly together in the Rogue squadron.”

Tycho grinned and held out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Cara Dune.”

“Likewise,” she said, taking his hand and smiling politely.

“Look, sorry about breaking up your, uh, date...," the pilot said with a smirk, "but I just couldn’t believe my eyes, you know? Was like I was seein’ a ghost.”

“Nope, it’s me. In the flesh,” Rylan said, sipping from the drink her friend bought her. “Been on the ground since Endor, though. Infantry for a while then got transferred to a dropper unit with this one.”

“Well, there’s a shock,” Tycho said with a wink, and the Corellian rolled her eyes. “Damn, you’ve come a long way since our days in the Academy, huh?”

Rylan cleared her throat as she felt Cara tense up next to her. “Yeah, but uh...cool it with that Academy talk, or else Commander Dune here is liable to beat your head in like you’re some kinda mean Devaronian.”

Tycho squinted in confusion, but Cara’s expression and the Rebel symbol under her eye told him enough. “Hey, I’m no Imp. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?” Cara repeated.

“No,” he said simply. “Not since the Disaster.”

Rylan looked between them, suddenly remembering that Tycho had more in common with Cara than with her. They were both survivors of Alderaan. The Disaster was what the survivors had taken to calling its destruction, when they could bring themselves to talk about it at all.

Cara noticed the implication of his term as well. “You’re from Alderaan?”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes momentarily drifting away the same way hers did when she thought about her homeworld. But he brought them back in a blink. “When I found out what the Empire had done, I knew I could never do what I wanted to in it.”

“Which was?” Cara asked.

“Fix it from the inside,” Rylan responded for him. “Tych here believed if he rose high enough he could even talk the emperor out of his throne.”

“I was young and stupid,” he said ruefully, throwing back the remainder of his drink in one take.

Rylan watched as Cara drank silently as well. Even in the presence of one of her own, she didn’t seem eager to let on that she was an Alderaanian herself.

“Yeah, and now you’re old and stupid,” the Corellian said, slugging his shoulder in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Still not as old or as stupid as you, if I recall,” Tycho said, smirking. “At least I never tried to hit on an admiral’s daughter.”

“Okay, first of all, how the hell was I supposed to know she was an admiral’s daughter?” Rylan asked in her own defense. “And second of all, she hit on me first!”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have been first if it had taken her another minute,” he said, looking between the two of them. “So who hit on who here first?”

Cara and Rylan pointed to each other at the same time.

“Excuse me?” the commander said incredulously.

“Excuse _me_ ,” Rylan replied. “First you literally hit me, then you spend the next _several_ days flexing those muscles every chance you get, then you _kiss_ me--”

“None of that was me hitting on you, laser brain.”

Rylan scoffed humorously. “Back me up here, Tych. That all sounds pretty flirtatious, does it not?”

“It does,” he said, smiling until Cara glared at him, “....not…? It does not, Rylan! How dare you say that?”

“Oh, be a man, Celchu! Don’t let her bully you!”

“I don’t think I have a choice, Ry.”

The Corellian sighed in defeat before punching her friend in the arm. “Thanks a lot, man.”

Tycho apologized as Cara finished her drink and slid out of the circular booth with a satisfied smirk. “I think I’ll go get us some refills.”

“There’s no way you didn’t hit on her first,” Tycho said when Cara was out of earshot.

Rylan laughed. “Oh man," she said, shaking her head, "I had no chance.”

“You always did like a girl with big muscles.”

“Yep. And hers are the biggest.”

Tycho snorted. “So how long has this been going on?”

“Uhh…’bout a year?” Ry said, calculating. “Since right after Jakku.”

“Wow. Didn’t think you were that type,” he said.

“Neither did I,” she admitted. “But it’s like I said, I had no chance.”

“I bet,” the pilot said with a smirk. “Where’s she from?”

Rylan bit her lip as she watched Cara start to make her way back to the table with their drinks. “You should ask her.”

Tycho raised an eyebrow in interest, and the commander returned to Rylan’s side in the booth.

“Thank you, trooper,” he said, accepting a fresh drink and taking a sip. “So, Cara....Ry tells me I should ask you where you’re from.”

Cara looked up at her partner, who wrapped one arm around her shoulders and reached the other across to hold her hand. Rylan nodded to her encouragingly. She didn’t think it was her place to tell Tycho what they had in common, but she knew it would be good for them both to know someone else who survived. Someone who understood.

“I grew up in Aldera,” Cara said, naming their home planet’s capital city.

Tycho’s mouth dropped open almost imperceptibly. “You’re a survivor too?”

Cara nodded, and the two of them exchanged watered-down versions of their stories. She’d been off-world trying to make a life for herself outside of her high-profile family, he was on assignment as a TIE pilot and had been on a HoloNet call with his family when it happened. Rylan was the only one at the table who knew how much more there was to each of their stories, but she knew they were theirs to tell and no one else’s. Her heart ached for both of them.

“Have you ever seen the colony? New Alderaan?” Tycho asked, and Cara shook her head. “You should check it out. A lot of us have made our way there. It’ll never be the same, but….it’s as close to home as we’re ever gonna get.”

He finished with a rueful smile and looked off far away again.

Cara locked eyes with Rylan. “It sounds great,” she said, “but we’re….trying to find home on our own.”

The Corellian smiled and pulled her closer. She’d go wherever Cara wanted. Anywhere with her was home as far as she was concerned.

Tycho’s sad smile grew to a glad one as he watched them. He’d met a lot of fellow survivors since the Disaster and had come to realize that no two of them coped with it the same fashion. He worried about many of them after they parted ways. But he knew he wouldn’t have to worry about Cara Dune.

She was in good hands.

~

After parting with Tycho -- and promising to let him know if they ever needed anything -- Cara and Rylan walked hand in hand along the lake shore on the way back to their camp. They were quiet most of the way, too busy taking in the beautiful, starry sky to bother filling it with words.

They reached the _Echo_ but opted to stay outside a while longer, planting themselves in the warm sand to continue staring skyward. Rylan wrapped her arms around Cara from behind and studied the stars, wondering which of them had been Alderaan’s, which of them had once shone brightly on her partner when she’d played outside as a girl.

“We could go, you know,” Ry said softly. “To the colony. If you want.”

“I know,” Cara said. “Maybe someday.”

“Okay,” the Corellian said, planting a kiss on her cheek. “I’m at home wherever you are, so it’s all up to you.”

“I know,” she said again.

“No pressure,” Rylan joked, and Cara laughed.

They left Takodana the next day, not even sure where they intended to land.


	6. The Debate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team weighs the pros and cons of a big decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a hard one to write but thanks to a little motivation from a friend and more than a little alcohol we made it through.

The first time one of them brought up retirement, the rest of the squad just laughed.

They’d just finished a shift as the main security detail for some important person or another -- it was their first time rubbing elbows with New Republic delegates, how were they supposed to remember who it was? The consensus was that if this was all that was left for them to do, why bother? It was Timber who made the quip. “They might as well retire all of us and replace us with droids,” he’d said with his signature grin, and they all agreed in the form of laughter.

The second time it came up, it was an even better joke.

Lio had been knocked out by a small explosion during a riot on Nakadia. When he came to, the first words out of his mouth had been “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit,” and the other droppers made sure he lived to regret lobbing that one up.

“‘Bout time to call it a career, eh Dad?” Rylan had teased.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you when your mind goes,” Dalla had assured him.

But later, in the quiet of their own thoughts, they all had to admit just how close they’d been to losing him that day. And they wondered if they’d get so lucky the next time.

The jokes made it tolerable for the first few months of the new normal, when there were apparently no more Imps for them to deal with and they were serving as the thin, vulnerable line between the angry public and the delegates. But as the months dragged on, the jokes weren’t landing anymore.

Risking their lives to take down the Empire had been one thing, but who were they risking them for now? Most days they weren’t even sure. They were even less sure who they were risking them against. Politics had been simple under the Empire, at least. You saw a buckethead or a friend of the bucketheads, you knew they were the bad guy. Now it was almost impossible to be sure whose side to be on. 

For the most part they figured it was smartest to be on the side that kept them employed. They all had at least a year of service left on their enlistment, and finding any respectable work as wanted deserters would be more of a pain than just sucking it up.

But it had been almost a year of this work, and they were all beginning to seriously take stock of their...less respectable skills.

“We’re nothing more than replaceable babysitters to them, you realize that don’t you?” Timber asked rhetorically. His big smile had recently given way to an anxious look more often than not. “We’re just their human shield, they don’t care what happens to us.”

“Well what do you want us to do, Timb?” Maggi asked. “Some of us have families to think about, we can’t just run and hide.”

The tension was palpable as the major considered her silently. Tension had become a more and more common feature of their debrief drink sessions, although none of them wanted to admit it. They weren’t being dropped into battles anymore, but trying to keep the peace as the New Republic worked out the kinks had plenty of risk attached. And whether or not to keep taking on that risk had become a heated topic of debate.

“I know that, Mags,” he conceded. “But don’t you think your family would rather have you alive than anything else? Don’t you think those kids deserve to know their Uncle K is alright?”

“We’re soldiers, Timber. We made our choice a long time ago,” she said, leaving out what the choice was because they all knew already. The choice to let their loved ones live with not knowing whether or not they’d ever make it home. It was a terrible choice to make, but they’d all known there was no other one they could have lived with.

“That was a different time, Mags,” Keoni said quietly, pleading to his sister with his eyes, the same green eyes that looked back at him. “Back then we knew there was no other way. But you’ve got to admit, this isn’t what we signed up for. We’re not fighting the Empire now, we’re only fighting ourselves.”

The talks went on that way for weeks. The sides were mostly unchanging -- Timber, Keoni, and Dalla advocated for getting out, while Maggi, Lio, and Rylan were hesitant. Cara had mostly kept quiet, but they had all assumed that her steadfast commitment to the Alliance put her in the latter category. Herk’s opinion wavered with the changing winds, as usual.

As much as they disagreed, though, they all knew they wouldn’t do anything unless they were all on board. They’d become a family. An insane, often dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless. And any decision had to be made together.

~

Cara woke suddenly to the unfamiliar feeling of being alone in her bed. It was still dark, and the chrono she squinted to look at told her it was the middle of the night. There was no reason for Rylan not to be by her side.

After checking the refresher unit adjoined to the room they were sharing while on Chandrila and finding it empty, Cara poked her head out to look on the balcony. There was her partner, leaning on the railing and staring distantly over the city below. Protests had been taking place for days, but at the moment it was quiet. It might have been a peaceful scene, had Cara not gotten the feeling that Rylan’s mind was anything but peaceful.

“Hey,” she said softly, so as not to startle the jumpy Corellian. “What’s the big idea leaving me all alone in bed? You have a nightmare?”

She hugged her from the side, and Rylan shook her head. “No, just couldn’t sleep.”

“Is it your head?” Cara asked. Ry had periodically dealt with headaches ever since crashing the X-wing, but they’d seemed to be growing more prevalent as of late.

“Yeah, I guess that must be it,” the captain said, fidgeting under her partner’s embrace.

“Babe. You are a terrible liar,” the Alderaanian said, turning her around so they were face to face. “What’s going on?”

Rylan sighed wearily. “It’s just all this talk about….deserting,” she said, spitting out the last word like it was an overly sour fruit. “I mean, I don’t love what we’ve been doing either, but running away? That’s not what we do. We’re soldiers.”

“Are we?” Cara asked, receiving an inquisitive head-tilt from her partner. “Ry, there hasn’t been a battle in almost two years.”

“It’s not just about that, Cara.”

“What’s it about, then?”

“We made a commitment. I thought you of all people would get that,” Rylan had assumed along with the rest of the team that Cara was on her side of the debate. Maybe she had been in the beginning, but day by day it was all getting more complicated.

“Of course I get that,” Cara said. “But look around, Ry, this isn’t what we committed to. I know this isn’t what you signed up for, and it sure as hell isn’t what I signed up for. I mean, playing bodyguard in the middle of political riots? That’s not why you joined the Alliance, it’s not why you stayed.”

“So what are we supposed to do? What happens when we leave and it all goes to hell?”

“Let the politicians figure that out, that’s supposed to be their job. Our job was to help people,” Cara reminded her. “There are still people out there that need our help, but that’s not going to happen if we stay here.”

Rylan looked back out over the city, chewing the inside of her cheek as she considered Cara’s point. She was right. Helping people _was_ what she’d stayed with the Alliance for. Making sure no one ever had to suffer under the Empire’s will again. No matter how the politics of the moment played out, neither side would be as bad as Imperial rule had been. But it was naive to think that life had just magically gotten better once the Empire had fallen. If they really wanted to make a meaningful difference to people that needed one, they couldn’t do it here. They definitely couldn’t do it if they were dead.

And yet, there was another aspect of it all that Rylan couldn’t get out of her head. A selfish one.

“And what about us?” she asked.

“What about us?” Cara asked back.

“If we do this, we’re fugitives. You understand that, right? If we do this, it’s going to make our….our side mission...so much harder,” the Corellian said. How were they ever supposed to find a home for themselves, to make a life, to settle down, if they were always on the run?

Cara smiled sadly. Of course Rylan would be thinking as much about the commitment she’d made to her as the one she’d made to the entire rest of the galaxy.

“Since when have we ever done anything the easy way?” she asked, hugging her soft-hearted partner close.

Rylan exhaled a laugh through her nose. “That’s a fair point.”

“No matter what happens, where we have to go, what we have to do,” Cara said, looking her in the eye intensely, “we’re gonna do it together. Right?”

“Yeah,” Ry agreed with a nod and a trusting smile. “Always.”

~

The protests of the previous days turned into a full-fledged riot by the following afternoon.

Opponents of Mon Mothma’s chancellorship had been stirring up the public for months, calling for her removal and that of any Galactic Senate members connected to her. With news that one of those senators would be making a public speech that day, tension had been growing in the city and was almost at the breaking point. Lio and Cara had pleaded with the senator’s advisors not to go on with the speech, but they’d been overruled. The team of out-of-place shock troopers had no choice but to follow their orders and play bodyguards for the politician.

The droppers had escorted him and his party from the senate apartments to the capitol building without much incident. But by the time they’d re-emerged out to the steps of the building, a mob had formed, apparently uninterested in actually listening to the speech.

The concerned citizens seemed content to yell over the speaker at first, but as the event went on they became more and more hostile, pushing incessantly against the barriers at the edge of the steps.

Rylan caught Cara’s eye from across the stage constructed for the event. She had on her best commander’s face, hard and serious, but the captain could tell she was anxious underneath it. Ry wasn’t doing as good of a job hiding her fear. Her brow had furrowed on its own and she was sweating, despite the pleasant breeze cooling the air. Cara nodded ever so slightly to her, silently assuring her it would be okay, and the Corellian took a deep breath and focused again.

A moment later all hell broke loose.

The barrier fell under the weight of the protesters, and the droppers converged in a small circle around the senator in the blink of an eye. A second unit rushed forward from the back of the stage in an attempt to slow the rushing crowd, but it was quickly apparent that they wouldn’t be able to hold them all back.

“Let’s get him out of here!” Cara yelled to the squad, who quickly moved to usher the politician inside.

A few eager protesters broke through the guards defending the steps and approached the pack of droppers. Being the ones farthest down the steps, Rylan and Keoni greeted the first two rather unkindly with the blunt ends of their blasters. Rylan chased down another while Keoni tangled with the first one. She tackled him to the ground and subdued him with a stun blast before turning back to find the other dropper trying to wrestle a blaster away from the protester.

A shot rang out as she went to lift her own blaster. Keoni crumpled to the ground.

Time slowed as Rylan screamed his name, stunned the man who shot him, and dragged him up the steps and into the building.  
The rest of the droppers were nowhere to be seen, apparently securing the senator in an interior room somewhere.

“K, stay with me,” she pleaded, rummaging in her med pack for anything that might help him. _What will help him? I don’t remember what will help him_. “Stay with me buddy.”

She found a stim canister and injected him with it but nothing happened. He just laid there, unmoving.

“We need a medic here!” she screamed to no one, her panicked voice echoing off the marble walls. “We need a fucking medic!”

But as she checked to see if he was breathing, the sound of approaching troopers distantly reaching her ears, she knew it was too late.

~

Aside from Maggi, none of the droppers cried on the day of the funeral. There was an unspoken understanding between them all that they needed to be as strong as they could for her. For her kids.

The night before, when they’d all arrived on Bespin after being given temporary leave for the funeral, they’d gotten it all out. They screamed, cried, cursed. They broke down, and held each other together as best they could. They’d all lost more friends and comrades than they cared to count, and it was never easy, but this was a brand new kind of pain. Keoni may have been Maggi’s twin, but he was a brother to all of them.

Rylan had barely said a word -- even to Cara -- since they’d found her just inside the entrance of the capitol building with his body. A tear-filled “I’m sorry” to Maggi was all she’d spoken before breaking down. It wasn’t until Maggi’s kids had sat down on either side of her, each of them staring up at her with the same green eyes their mother and uncle shared, that she seemed to come out of the trance she’d been in.

“You must be the little womp rats your Uncle K talked about all the time,” she said, pulling each of them in closer.

Cara watched with a sad smile as Rylan told them every child-appropriate story she could about their uncle until it was time for the ceremony to begin. When their mother called them away, she sat down by her partner and hugged her close. They sat there that way without a word until Lio came to get them.

They sat the same way after the ceremony and other gatherings ended, when the whole squad lounged together in Maggi’s living room. Her husband had taken the kids to bed, leaving the team of droppers alone for a quiet moment together.

“We can’t go back.” Timber broke the silence after a long while, softly but with resolution.

“Maybe now’s not the best time to talk about it,” Dalla suggested.

“No,” Maggi declared, drawing the attention of all the others. “He’s right. We’re not going back.”

It would have been a surprising change of heart under any other circumstances, but none of them were shocked at this point. It’s what her brother would have wanted.

“Alright,” Lio said, giving up the remaining doubts he’d had about taking an early retirement. “For K.”

They all looked at Rylan, the last one left who’d been against deserting. She looked back at them all in turn, finally meeting Cara’s eyes and finding the strength to agree.

She took her partner’s hand and nodded. “For K.”

It wasn't until the next day, when they went their separate ways, that they realized they'd never all be together again.


	7. The Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've finished all the in-between moments I had in mind and now it's time to move on towards the happy ending. This chapter and the next are going to be the first not to take place between Part 3 and 4 of Shock. Hopefully the timelines will become apparent as you read. (Hint: maybe reread the epilogue before this one)

_In the months that followed their team’s desertion from the Republic army, Cara and Rylan had come to realize just how lucky they were to have each other._

_They’d always been aware of the incredible amount of both coincidences and choices that had brought them together, and they both made sure to thank whatever force had been responsible as often as they could. But leaving behind the certainty of their life with the squad made them even more appreciative of what they’d been given in each other. As confusing and complicated as life had become, at the end of the day they knew they’d be back in each other’s arms again. And that was all that really mattered._

_Still, they had to find ways to make ends meet, to keep the_ Echo _in the air when they needed to, and that had proven to be tough. They’d never made plans beyond the army, always aware in the back of their minds that their jobs as shock troopers could be as permanent as the tattoos that marked them as such. Now they not only had to find entirely new work, but they had to do it under the government’s radar. If they picked the wrong job, took a wrong step, trusted the wrong person, they’d rot forever in a New Republic prison. In separate cells, no doubt._

_Luckily it was a big galaxy, and there were plenty of whole planets where they could live and work with relative anonymity. The frigid world of Kijimi was one of those. Cara and Rylan used a snow-covered mountain as a home base for several months while taking jobs mostly off-world, smuggling and transporting cargo they’d prefer not to know anything about. Until one day the Alderaanian came to her partner and said she’d had enough._

_“Oh, finally,” Rylan had said with a relieved sigh. “I hate this planet and how you’re always wearing long sleeves on it.”_

_She made sure to pick a warmer planet to try out next -- one where Cara would be free to show off her muscles without freezing._

_“So, what’s on Savareen?” Cara asked on the way to that warmer planet._

_“Sand. Lots of sand,” Rylan said, studying the readout on the_ Echo _’s navigation panel. “Oh, and good brandy, apparently.”_

_“Ooh, I like this one already.”_

_“Right? What more could we ask for?”_

_“Well, jobs of course,” Cara reminded her. “Please tell me there’s gonna be some work there besides drinking brandy.”_

_“Baby, have I ever steered you wrong?”_

_“Do you really want me to answer that?” the Alderaanian asked with one eyebrow raised._

_“...........there will be work,” Rylan said after a long pause._

_“Good.”_

_“But you know,” she said, reclining in the pilot’s seat with her hands behind her head. “I think we should take this opportunity to learn some new things.”_

_“What are you talking about?” Cara asked, putting her feet up on the control panel in front of her co-pilot’s chair._

_“Well, I think we should both be expanding our skill set, you know?” the pilot said. “For example, you could learn some ship maintenance or….how to fly. Could give you a little more respect for my baby here.”_

_She reached up and yanked Cara’s boots off the dash._

_“First of all, do not call this thing your baby after you just called me that 30 seconds ago,” the Alderaanian warned with the point of her finger. “And second, why do I have to learn how to fly? That’s your job. I’m the one that makes the money, shoots the guns, cooks the food--”_

_“Hey, I’ve cooked food.”_

_“That’s what you decide to jump in on? Last time you cooked you started a fire.”_

_“That happened_ one _time and I put it out.”_

_“_ I _put it out,” Cara corrected. “You ran away.”_

_“Clearly we remember that incident differently.”_

_“Yeah, one of us is in denial.”_

_“Apparently,” Rylan said, then paused. “What were we talking about?”_

_Cara rolled her eyes. “Learning new things.”_

_“Right,” she remembered. “Look, I’ll learn whatever you think I should too, but I think you at least need to know how to set the autopilot and land this bab-- this...ship.”_

_“Whatever you say, Captain,” Cara agreed, resting her feet once again on the dash._

When Cara put Rylan’s baby down on the strange planet of Sorgan, remembering that time on the way to Savareen, she had every reason to believe that the Corellian wouldn’t be far behind. After all, she’d promised.

On the flight from Lothal to Sorgan, Cara’s mind had replayed every promise Rylan had made to her. To help her find a home. To never leave her. To always love her. The big promises and a thousand little ones in between, Cara thought about them all. Ry had always kept them, even the one to teach her how to fly, which Cara had not made easy.

Surely she wouldn’t pick now to break one. She’d be there soon.

That was what Cara told herself the whole first day on Sorgan. It was what she told herself for the first week. It was what she told herself for the first month.

By the second month, it got harder to keep telling herself. When that happened, she knew had to start finding other things to do to pass the time until her partner arrived.

For the first month she’d mostly stayed on the _Echo_ , hiding out and listening closely to the communication feed for any hint of where Rylan was and when she’d show up. She hardly slept, always afraid she’d miss something as soon as she dozed off. But after a month of nothing, she knew she had to venture out, if only for her own sanity.

That’s when she stumbled upon the town and the common house. At first she was wary of spending much time there, concerned that whoever had captured Rylan could have followed her and might be hanging out in the town waiting to nab her as well. The more time she did spend there, however, the more clear it was that not only was no one there after her, but it was unlikely anyone looking for her wasn’t going to find her there either. Sorgan was remote even by backwater skughole standards. Rylan had chosen their next destination well.

It didn’t take long for the Alderaanian to catch the eye of Ida, the owner of the common house. Ida had a way of sniffing out the travelers with the best stories, and one look at Cara was all it took for her to know there was a good one under all that armor and the scowl.

“Credit for your thoughts, traveler?” Ida had asked when she first ordered an ale at the bar. But Cara just sized her up, took her drink, and sat down at an empty table in the corner.

Ida was even more intrigued when the lonely, scowly woman began to enter the fights -- and win them. She started giving her free drinks when she won and finally got her talking after enough ale loosened her tongue. But even then, she’d only gotten Cara’s name and that she was a former soldier.

After a month of wasting her own money giving Cara free booze only to get little details out of her, Ida brought out the big guns. The ex-shock trooper had just impressed the whole common house by beating a towering Lasat, and Ida poured her a celebratory flagon of spotchka.

“What’s this?” Cara asked, scrunching her face at the shining blue liquid.

“Sorgan special,” Ida replied. “Only for the strong and the worthy, which you certainly seem to be.”

Cara took a cautious sip, then a bigger one, and soon enough the flagon was empty. Ida happily poured another as the Alderaanian finally began to open up, answering every question she threw at her.

By the end of the night, when all the other patrons had cleared out of the common house and the two of them had moved to sit outside and continue drinking together, Ida had Cara’s whole heart-breaking story. She’d been right -- it was a good one.

After that night, Cara trusted Ida completely. And Ida vowed to do whatever she could to make sure Cara was safe until her partner arrived.

~

By the time the Mandalorian came back to Sorgan with his weird little son, much of Cara’s hope and even her despair had given way to anger.

The longer she was stuck there alone on that perfect, beautiful planet, the more angry she became about everything the galaxy had taken from her. The longer she had to wait for the day she wasn’t even still sure would come, the harder it was not to think she was being unfairly punished for something. First Alderaan, now this? What had she done to deserve all of that?

With all the anger bottled up in her, Cara was winning her fights even more easily than she had before. She no longer needed to take a hit before letting loose. She had more than enough pain to fuel her at any given moment.

Mando happened to stroll in with the kid as one of those fights finished, and she found she was pleased to see the familiar faces (well, one face and one helmet). They were an incredibly odd pair, but they were anything but boring. And Cara needed a distraction from her wait. From all the anger.

“Looking for some work?” he asked, and she wasn’t, but she sat down to hear him out anyway.

He laid out his problem and his plan, and Cara gave him every excuse as to why she couldn’t go along with him. All the easy ones, at least. She kept to herself the biggest one: that she couldn’t leave, that she was waiting for someone and had to be there when they came.

But when he dropped the bomb on her, that they weren’t going to be facing down some local warlord but instead an Imp, she was helpless to resist. 

“I’m in,” she said with only a moment's hesitation. _Ry would understand_.

Not that Cara truly believed anymore that she’d show up anyway. It had been almost a year. What were the odds that she’d finally make her way there in the short time it would take to clean out one more Imp?

On the off chance that that did happen, Cara left specific instructions with Ida about where the _Echo_ was hidden and what to tell the Corellian about where she went.

Then she took off on a space mission with the galaxy’s weirdest little family.

~

Cara found herself regretting leaving Sorgan soon enough, but not for the reasons she thought she would.

Getting choked to death by a little green baby in the middle of an arm-wrestling match -- which she was winning, for the record -- was the last way she would have guessed she would die. But then it had almost happened, and Cara realized she really didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into with this mission.

She retreated to Mando’s armory after the incident, wanting some time to herself, away from the kid, the Ugnaught, the droid, the blurgs -- all of it. He found her there after a while and apologized again for the kid’s behavior.

Cara just stared distantly, her hands idly rotating the blaster pistol she’d grabbed. “You know, if I die on this little mission,” she said to him, “you’re gonna be in very big trouble.”

“You mean I’m not already?” he asked, his voice slightly mechanical thanks to the helmet.

“Oh no,” she replied, finally looking at him. “Bounty hunters, Imps, droids -- they all might kill you, but they wouldn’t do the things that would happen to you if I didn’t come back from this.”

“Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?”

“If I never make it back to Sorgan, and the person I was there waiting for does, the people after your little monster will be the least of your worries,” she warned.

Mando was quietly stunned under his beskar. “I didn’t know you were waiting for someone there.”

“I know. Only one other person does.”

“The waitress,” he guessed. “I knew she knew you.”

Cara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, don’t let her hear you call her that.”

After an extended silence, the Mandalorian spoke up. “So who’s coming after me if you die?”

“My partner,” she said simply, her eyes dropping to stare at the ground.

“I’m guessing not the ‘in crime’ kind.”

She chuckled. “Oh, there were plenty of crimes involved. But no, not exactly….”

“Got it,” Mando said, nodding. “Why’d you come if you were waiting for someone?”

Cara laughed humorlessly and shook her head. “Because I’ve been waiting for almost a year and nothing has changed. Because I don’t--” she paused, hating herself for the tears threatening to fall in front of the Mandalorian. “Because I don’t know if I still believe she’ll get there.”

It was the first time she admitted it out loud. She still wouldn’t allow herself to consider the worst, that Rylan was dead, but she’d long ago begun to think her waiting was for naught. If she really wanted her back, if she wanted to be whole again, she’d have to find her.

“And if I help you take care of this, then….” Cara continued, “maybe you can help me find her.”

She studied his helmet desperately, trying to find a hint of emotion anywhere under it. But after a moment he just nodded slowly.

“Of course,” Mando agreed, and Cara breathed deeply for the first time in ages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my faithful reader aluckypenny for a very important detail in the flashback ;)


	8. The Cell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting back to back because this chapter and the previous one go hand-in-hand (I even wrote them simultaneously because I have a little bit of ADD I think). It's also the last one before the end. Not sure how I feel about that!

Bordi was sleeping soundly in his cell when the fresh meat arrived.

He didn’t appreciate being woken up so abruptly, but he had to admit he was happy to have some company again. The old Ardennian had been alone in the cell for several weeks (or was it months?) when the new human was unceremoniously tossed in with him. At first he was disappointed in his new cellmate’s species -- humans were typically very boring. But it didn’t take long for this one to prove the exception to the rule.

The scrawny blonde human yelled uselessly at the guard droids as they secured the cell.

“Some justice this is, throwing me in here without a trial! Is this what I almost died fighting for? What a government!”

“Hey, keep it down, would ya?” Bordi requested, startling the human who apparently hadn’t noticed his presence when she was tossed in the cell. “Just because some of us deserve to be here doesn’t mean we don’t also deserve a nap.”

The human looked him up and down, taking in his grayish blue fur and four arms. “Sorry,” she muttered, immediately going to work trying to figure out how to short the electronic lock on the cell.

The Ardennian watched her with interest. This was one determined human. “What’s the rush, kid?”

“I have to get out of here,” she replied, continuing to pick at the lock in any way she could. “Got somewhere else to be.”

“Don’t we all?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s no use, though. Once you’re here, you’re here until they let you out.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Bordi sighed. The kid was determined alright. But unfortunately delusional. “You got a name?”

The human paused, as if trying to remember the answer. “Killis,” she said. “Rylan Killis.”

“What’d they get you for, Rylan Killis?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, cursing and punching the cell door that wouldn’t budge. “Damn it!”

“Looks like it does,” Bordi said, watching his cellmate sink down to sit on the floor and bury her face in her hands.

Rylan had to try her best not to cry in that moment. If she’d been alone she probably would have, but crying in front of your cellmate didn’t seem like a smart way to spend your first day in prison. She’d been trying not to cry for about a week, she calculated. She’d held down all her pain and anger in front of the bounty hunter, determined not to give him a reason to carbon freeze her as he’d done to Herk. She’d held it down in front of the New Republic officials she’d been turned over to. And she’d continue to hold it down in front of this Ardennian as long as it took to bust out of this prison. Or so she planned.

“I have to get out of here,” she said again.

“Well, you might as well get started waiting,” Bordi suggested. “How long you got?”

Rylan shook her head. “I don’t know. Wasn’t paying attention.”

“‘Cause you thought you could break out?” he assumed, and the human nodded. “What’s out there that’s so important?”

She chuckled dryly and looked at him. “Everything.”

Bordi got the feeling that she didn’t literally mean she was missing _every_ thing the outside world had to offer. The way she said it suggested instead that it was one thing -- or one person -- that meant everything to her.

“I hate to break it to you, but Everything is going to have to wait.”

“No,” she said simply, rising again to peer out of the cell and survey its surroundings, which only consisted of more cells. “There’s gotta be a way. There has to be. I….I told her I’d be there….”

And there it was. A girl. It was always a girl.

“Look, kid,” Bordi said, “even if you somehow found a way to break out of this cell, and even if you were able to avoid the droids determined to put you back in this cell, and even if you managed to get out of this prison, you’d die immediately.”

“Immediately?” Rylan questioned with a hint of offense. “Buddy, people have been shooting at me for years and no one’s hit me so far, especially not immediately.”

“I’m not talking about getting shot, kid,” the Ardennian said. “What, you haven’t noticed yet?”

She turned away from the door to look at him. “Noticed what?”

Bordi sighed. “That it feels a little weird in here? The ground, the air? Come on, I know you can feel it.”

Rylan stared at him in confusion for a moment before really taking in her surroundings. It was abnormally quiet, save for the faint snores of prisoners in other cells. The air smelled too clean and felt artificial. _No…._ She hopped off the ground slightly, and her heart sank as she felt the nearly imperceptible but familiar impediment under her feet as they returned to the floor. _It can’t be…._

“We’re in space,” she whispered, putting together the deafening silence, the manufactured air, and the artificial gravity. “This is a ship.”

Rylan had been so consumed with her thoughts and strategies to escape that she hadn’t paid much attention to where she’d been taken throughout the week. She’d assumed they’d imprisoned her on one of the main government planets, but apparently the New Republic wasn’t interested in taking chances with its captives. Anyone who managed to somehow get out would succumb to the infinite vacuum of space.

She sat down helplessly on the shelf masquerading as a bunk, turned away from the curious Ardennian, and silently cried herself to sleep.

~

_Life on Savareen was about as different as it could have been from life on Kijimi. Cara and Rylan had traded snow for sand, frigid mountain air for warm breezes on endless beaches, and shady smuggling work for slightly less shady mercenary work when they needed extra credits. Rylan was taking advantage of the sparsely populated world to teach Cara the basics of flying, which was going….fine. And they were drinking more good brandy than they ever dreamed possible._

_One thing that didn’t change, however, was the amount of time they liked to spend wrapped up in each other in the_ Echo _’s sleeping quarters -- although Rylan did have to stop using the “we have to keep each other warm somehow” excuse. It was one perk of their post-military life that they had to acknowledge: they never needed to feel guilty about spending full days at a time in bed._

_On one of those days, in the middle of one of those weeks, Cara sat up and asked her partner a completely unprompted question._

_“What do you want?”_

_Rylan, half-asleep after hours of her favorite activity, mumbled a confused reply. “What, like for dinner?”_

_“No,” Cara said, slapping her gently on the face to wake her up. “What do you want in life?”_

_“Wow, what a specific question,” the Corellian said with a chuckle._

_“Come on, you know what I mean,” Cara urged, looking down at her seriously._

_“Yeah but I….don’t know the answer,” she admitted. “You know me, I just go where the wind takes me.” Life had a way of just happening to Rylan, which she had to think was a good thing considering how little thought she put into most of her decisions._

_Her partner rolled her eyes. “You’re such a pilot.”_

_“Good thing one of us is,” Ry said with a smirk. Cara’s flying lessons hadn’t led to any major accidents or injuries, but it would still be a while before she would be trusted to take the_ Echo _out for a solo flight._

_“Watch it, Killis,” she warned with a playful glare before turning serious again. “Just think about it. What if you could choose? If we didn’t have to worry about anything else, where would we be? What would we do?”_

_“Where’s this coming from?” the captain asked. Cara wasn’t one to live in the hypothetical world. She was realistic and logical, adapting her needs and desires to her circumstances. Questions that began with “what if” sounded strange coming out of her mouth._

_She shrugged noncommittally. “I just want to know what you want. Besides me.”_

_Rylan took a moment to think, her automatic response having been already taken away. She answered slowly, picturing for the first time what her idea of a perfect life with Cara would look like. “I want….a house. A real house. With a nice big backyard to park the ship in. I want a place that’s really ours, that we don’t have to pack up and take with us every time we go somewhere.”_

_“That sounds nice.” Cara laid back down and snuggled into her partner’s side. “What would you do?”_

_“Open up a parts store. Maybe a maintenance shop….flight school…” Rylan realized she’d love to have a real place to put her feet on the ground, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep them there forever._

_Cara hummed and nodded. “What about kids?”_

_The captain squinted at her, sensing a trap. Cara had never shown any interest at all in the few kids they’d come across on their adventures. “Is that a trick question?”_

_She laughed. “Probably.”_

_Rylan shook her head and rolled to her side to look at Cara. “All of that would be nice. But I got all I need right here,” she said, kissing her sweetly._

_“Mmm, right here?” Cara asked, returning the favor._

_“Exactly.”_

That was the day they’d decided to leave Savareen, Rylan realized when she woke up from the dream she’d rather not have had.

Maybe if they hadn’t, if they’d stayed right there and never left for Lothal, they’d still be together. She wouldn’t be stuck in a cell with a four-armed creature that snored and Cara wouldn’t be all alone again.

She knew that was stupid to believe -- Herk could have just as easily led the bounty hunter to them on Savareen -- but what else was there to do now besides doubt every decision she’d ever made?

For the first few months on the prison ship, she’d tried everything she could think of to find a way out, even though she knew getting out was suicide. She had to try. Cara would try.

Rylan and Bordi had spent months tracking the movement of every droid in the place after she’d told him all about what brought her there and why she had to get out. He knew of course that it was futile, but at least it gave them something to do. And as much as he hated to admit it, he had a soft spot for the sad but determined human.

After a while, though, she’d lost whatever glimmer of hope she had of finding a way out. It saddened Bordi to see the way she slowly transitioned from talking about all the things she’d wanted to do with the girl on the outside, Cara, to just retelling the old memories with an air of regret. He held out hope for her still though, as she used the small cell to work out as much as possible. The way she powered through countless push-ups every day gave him the sense that she was trying to build up enough strength to simply punch through the cell door. And as long as that was something to try for, he supposed, he wouldn’t worry too much about her mentality.

Rylan was on the floor doing more push-ups when the visitors arrived.

It had been many months since she’d been thrown in there -- although if pressed, she would not have been able to come up with a specific number of them. So far not a single interesting thing had happened, aside from her unlikely friendship with Bordi, and she didn’t expect anything interesting to happen that day either. Even when they heard the sound of heavy sentient footsteps nearby, Rylan assumed nothing was amiss until the Ardennian sat up with interest.

“You heard that too, right?” he said.

“Probably just fresh meat,” she said, getting right back to her endless push-ups.

“I don’t think so,” Bordi said, moving to the cell door to peer out. “No, look. There’s people.”

Rylan couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched them pass. A Devaronian, a Twi’lek, a Mandalorian, and a human with a blaster arm growing out of his back. They certainly were a strange enough crew to have come straight from her wildest dreams.

“This could be your chance,” Bordi said, half in awe as if he couldn’t believe it himself.

“Chance to do what? Get myself shot?”

“No, to get out of here,” the Ardennian said, ignoring Rylan’s skeptical head shake. “You’re the best talker I’ve ever seen. You get their attention and offer them something and you could get them to take you with ‘em.”

“We don’t even know what they’re here for, or who they are, or how they plan on getting out without dying,” she said, sitting down on her bed fully intent on ignoring whatever was going on.

“So you’re just gonna sit there and not even try?” Bordi asked, still hanging on the cell door by three of his four arms. “Is that what Cara would do?”

Rylan glared at him. “Don’t say her name.”

“I think Cara would want you to try,” he urged.

“What did I just say,” the Corellian demanded through gritted teeth, standing up and grabbing her cellmate harshly by his jumpsuit. He backed down and mumbled an apology as she released him, afraid of the new side of Rylan that he’d never seen.

She sat back down and hung her head. This wasn’t her. To not try, to lose her temper, to give up hope. Bordi was right, Cara would want her to try.

But trying would only lead to more disappointment in the end -- all the months in this cage had taught her that. So she just laid down and stared at the ceiling, determined not to think about the strange band of visitors.

That worked for all of five minutes.

She’d been vaguely hearing Bordi’s play-by-play as the visitors had engaged the security droids in a shootout, then later returned to their corridor and attracted the attention of a hover droid. His tone was impressed as he relayed how the Devaronian wrestled the thing to the ground.

“Damn, Devs are scary dudes,” he commented. “Wait, now he’s picking it up? And he’s….he’s throwing it at this one!”

Bordi leapt from his perch on the cell door just in time, as the thrown droid collided with another one right outside their cell, causing an explosion and a burst of flame.

Rylan sprung from the bunk to check on the Ardennian, patting out a small bit of fire on one of his arms. “That’s what you get for bein’ nosy, you four-armed genius.”

“Woah, yeah….” he replied in a daze before blinking back to focus. His little mouth curled into a smile as he looked ahead of him at the door. “Well, would you look at that?”

“Huh? You hit your head?” Rylan asked, checking the back of his head for a dent.

Bordi lifted one of his arms to steer her own face toward the door. The lock panel was sparking and charred, having taken the full brunt of the explosion. The Corellian’s breath left her.

“What’s that you were saying about me being a four-armed genius?” Bordi said, grinning at his cellmate, who continued to stare at the door with her mouth agape. “What are you waiting for?”

She looked at him then rose to prod at the panel. With one touch, the door wooshed halfway open before getting stuck. It was enough.

Rylan breathed out a half-sigh, half-laugh before turning back to Bordi. “You coming?”

The Ardennian smiled and shook his head. “Next time. Just promise me you’ll find a way to get your ass out of here.”

“I will,” she said, although she had no idea how. She went to go, aiming to head in the opposite direction of the boarding party for the time being. Bordi’s voice called to her as she stood up from ducking under the door.

“Hey, kid,” he said. She looked back to him through the charred door. “Say hi to Cara for me.”

Rylan smiled and nodded once, then set off down the corridor.

Her first order of business was to grab a blaster off one of the fallen security droids. She planned to try to avoid the visitors if she could, but wanted to be ready just in case that wasn’t possible. The Corellian inched along the corridors cautiously, checking around every corner for droids or visitors, and eventually stumbled upon the control room. _Jackpot_.

Rylan peered inside carefully, making sure no one was there already. She was startled to find someone, albeit not an alive someone. The crew must have killed the control room operator in order to do whatever they were off doing, and the poor man laid there in a pool of his own blood. She stepped around him cautiously and studied the various readouts and controls. They mostly showed feeds of activity in the prison, and she realized with a pang of guilt that she was lucky they had killed the man, or else he would have seen her escape.

After looking around at all the feeds and buttons for a minute, Rylan found what she needed. The outgoing communication line undoubtedly would go directly to the New Republic by default, but with a little tinkering she should be able to get a message out to someone else. She hoped.

She didn’t get to find out right away though, as a video feed above her showed the Mandalorian hurriedly making his way back to the control room alone. Rylan let out a frustrated sigh and vacated the room, hiding out in a nearby corridor to watch. She sat around longer than she cared to, watching and listening as the Mandalorian rounded up his crew members one by one and left them in a cell together.

When she was finally confident the drama was over, the Corellian rushed back to the control room. She checked to make sure there were no distress signals active that would send any New Republic ships to come knocking, then set to work hacking the communication line to send out her own distress signal to an old friend.

~

After waiting for hours in the control room, Rylan finally heard the magic words.

“I’m locked on. Let’s go,” the voice came over the line.

“Roger that.”

It took all her will not to sprint to where her ride had locked on to the prison ship. Instead she cautiously navigated the corridors again until she found the ladder, her hands shaking as she climbed it up into the waiting starship.

She was wrapped in a giant hug as soon as she was secure onboard.

Rylan chuckled. “Yeah I missed you too, Dad. But don’t you think we oughta get out of here?”

Lio released her from the hug but held onto her arms as he looked at her emotionally. “Sorry, it’s just….” he said, looking infinitely more old and gray since the last time she’d seen him. “I’m sorry.”

After flagging him on the secret communications line, Rylan had explained what had gone down with Herk and everything since. He’d already known from Cara that she was missing, but neither of them knew anything beyond that.

“It’s okay, Lio. It wasn’t your fault,” she assured him.

“I know,” he nodded unconvincingly, still holding her by the upper arms. He squeezed them and cocked his head. “Is it me or are you kinda ripped?”

Rylan laughed and shook her head. “Let’s get outta here.”

“You got it, Captain,” he agreed, leading her to the cockpit of his junky starship. “You wanna drive?”

“No way,” she said, taking a seat in the co-pilot’s chair. She wanted the first ship she flew again to be the _Echo_ , assuming Cara hadn’t sold her off.

“Alright then,” Lio said, settling into the pilot’s seat. “Let’s get you back to your better half.”

Rylan strapped herself in and took a deep breath, tears of relief filling her eyes at just the thought of them being a whole again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're confused about any of this, please re-watch Chapter 6 of The Mandalorian. Also I'm sorry.


	9. The Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for not committing to an ending until next season. Just couldn't leave these two hanging.

Rylan turned down Lio’s offer to stay and help her figure out just where on Sorgan her partner was waiting. He’d already done more than enough, she told him, and he shouldn’t waste any time getting back to his own family.

Plus, she realized, she didn’t want anyone else around when she was finally reunited with Cara.

But after days of wandering around the beautiful, forested planet on her own and finding no one who seemed to know anything about a dark and mysterious ex-shock trooper, Ry started to kick herself for not letting him help.

Sorgan was far from the biggest planet Rylan had ever spent time on, but it wasn’t small by any means, and just getting from one small town to another took much longer than it would have on a more industrialized world. Even when she managed to hitch rides with loggers or farmers, their transportation was often slower than her own two feet.

Those feet were killing her when she entered yet another town and collapsed on a chair in its common house. Like the dozen other common houses she’d visited since arriving on the planet, it wasn’t much to look at. Its walls were made of boards that didn’t even meet each other and she was sure the thatch roof wouldn’t do much to keep the rain from muddying the dirt floor when the sky let loose -- not that it seemed to rain much here, it had been clear and sunny every day. The furniture was all worn and rustic, and the people looked ragged, but happy enough. If nothing else, it was a lively place with plenty of character.

A middle-aged woman approached Rylan’s table while yelling over her shoulder to a couple of sentients at the bar that she’d be right with them. When she turned around and saw the tired-looking blonde traveler before her -- and the familiar stripes that adorned her right bicep -- the woman almost dropped the pitcher of ale she was holding.

“Woah,” Rylan said, catching the drink before it could fall. “I was gonna order one of those, but not in my lap.”

She grinned at her own joke, and the woman continued to look at her, stunned, mouth agape.

“Are you alright?” Ry asked, squinting with concern at her.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” the woman said. “You’re the captain.”

Rylan sat back and dropped the pitcher to the table. “How did you know that?” she asked breathlessly.

The woman nodded at her dropper’s stripes. “Cara told me all about you,” she said, her eyes welling up. “You have no idea how glad I am that you’re finally here.”

All the air in the room must have suddenly gone away, because Rylan couldn’t breathe at all for what felt like a full minute. She felt tears sting her eyes as she finally found her breath again.

“You know her?” she asked shakily. “She’s….she’s here?”

The Corellian went to stand so they could go to her, but the woman laid a hand on her arm before she could get up. 

“No, you just missed her,” she said sadly, and Rylan could tell she didn’t mean Cara had just gotten up to use the ‘fresher. A hundred worst-case scenarios flashed through her mind, a hundred bad things that could have happened to Cara while she had taken her precious time getting to her.

“Is she okay?” Ry asked, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer.

The woman smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure she is, sweetheart,” she said, and motioned for Rylan to follow her. “Come on. There’s something you need to see.”

The captain’s worries were abated over the next half hour, as Ida introduced herself and led her out of the common house and away from the town. She told Rylan all about how she’d met Cara and the friendship they’d struck up. As they walked through the forest, she told her how the Alderaanian had recently gone off on a mission to help some Mandalorian kill an Imp. It didn’t make any sense to Rylan, but she had to admit it sounded like something Cara would jump at. As long as she came back soon, she didn’t care how much sense it made.

They reached a small clearing in the middle of the forest and Rylan finally looked up from watching her own feet to see a familiar gray hunk of junk.

“I believe this belongs to you,” Ida said, gesturing at the half-covered VCX-100.

The Corellian chuckled at the sight of the _Echo_. “That she does.”

“I’ll leave you two alone then,” Ida said with a wink. “Oh, almost forgot. Supposed to tell you to make sure to look in the co-pilot’s seat.”

She turned and left without another word, and Rylan was left to stare at her ship alone. She had half expected to never see it again, thinking Cara might have sold it for a chunk of credits in a pinch or that she would have deemed it unsafe to keep after they’d been made once already. But it looked as if she’d kept right on using it as a home base the way they had together.

Rylan found she was hesitant to step inside it, afraid of all the emotions that would come with being back in the one place that had been consistent for her and Cara from the beginning. Especially when Cara wasn’t there to go inside with her. How difficult that must have been for her partner, waiting for a year while surrounded by every memory of them. It might have been even harder than having none of that, as Rylan had, alone with no reminders in a small cell.

In the latter months of her incarceration, Rylan hadn’t allowed herself to think much about all the things she missed about Cara and their life together. As her hope had been drained out slowly, those thoughts had only brought her pain, so she’d pushed them aside. But when she finally convinced herself to step onto the _Echo_ again, its familiar walls closed in on her and pushed every memory and thing she missed right back up to the forefront of her mind.

Rylan missed everything about Cara so much that it physically hurt to stand there. She missed her shy smile, her comforting and strong arms, her soothing voice, her Rebel tattoo that constantly brought Rylan back to the night she got it, the first night Cara had shown the Corellian her heart. She missed watching her braid her hair, and how the unbraided half of it always threatened to hide one of her eyes. She missed the way she always pretended not to enjoy her jokes. She missed feeling safe and loved and whole.

“She better get her ass back here soon,” Rylan said to herself with a dry laugh. The galaxy must have been playing a sick joke on her, letting her come back as soon as Cara had gone off somewhere else.

The captain fought away the memories and the frustration and headed for the cockpit. She thought about stopping in the sleeping quarters but decided there was no way she could handle being in there just yet. Rylan lowered herself slowly into the pilot’s seat and grazed her fingers over the various controls. She looked around proudly. It was just as she’d left it. Cara hadn't changed a thing.

Suddenly Ida’s last words came back to Rylan and she darted her eyes to the co-pilot’s chair. There, sitting right where Cara should have been, was a data chip. Rylan picked it up and studied it, turned it over in her hands to try to see what was so important about it. Whatever that was must have been its contents, so she inserted it into the holo-player and watched.

Tears sprang to her eyes as her partner’s face appeared before her, a whitish-blue ghost from her dreams.

The hologram version of Cara bit her lip nervously. “I can’t decide if I want you to see this or not,” she said, and Rylan’s heart leapt at the sound of her voice. She'd almost forgotten how it sounded. “If you do see it, that means you got back and I wasn’t there. But if you don’t….well, I guess I do want you to see it. I just wish you could see the real me first.”

“You and me both, baby,” the captain said with a sad smile, though Cara would never hear.

“I’m leaving this so you know not to worry,” holo-Cara continued, “although I know you will. But I’ll be back soon. Gotta help Mando out with a quick job so his kid will be safe, but it shouldn’t take long and after it’s done there’ll be one less Imp out there. I think you’d like Mando. I don’t think he’d like you, though.”

Rylan snorted. “Rude.”

“Anyway, I have to get going. He’s kind of in a hurry,” she said. “Just know that I love you and I’ll be there soon.”

Rylan watched as Cara smiled a tired smile and reached to turn off the recording. She sat there staring at the spot where her face had been, lip quivering as she thought once again about how unfair it all was. Cara probably didn’t even believe she’d ever see that message. If she’d really thought Rylan would be back soon enough to see it, she wouldn’t even have left in the first place.

She was still staring at the same spot when Cara’s face returned. At first she thought the message was playing over again, but she realized quickly that it was a different one, an earlier one.

“So, I told myself I wasn’t going to do any of these but….I don’t know. Today was hard and I need to talk to you even if you can’t hear me. A few weeks ago I met this bounty hunter, this Mandalorian. Thought he was here for me but he was just looking for a place to land, same as we always were. Had this weird kid, some kind of green thing with big ears, no idea what species it was. After I kicked his ass he came back around and asked me for help running off some raiders in this village a little ways away. That’s a whole story for another time, but afterwards….we just hung out there, in the village. For weeks, I mean, we just sat around and talked and drank and watched the kids. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It was so peaceful and nice and perfect but I couldn’t enjoy it because you weren’t there.

“I don’t….I don’t want to talk about all the things I miss without you here. But there’s so many that I feel like I have to or they’ll just explode out of me. So I’ll just say that they’re things I can’t wait to have again, not things I miss, okay?” Cara asked.

A tear ran down Rylan’s cheek as she hugged herself and answered. “Okay baby.”

“I can’t wait to have that face back,” Cara began, smiling as she pictured her partner’s own goofy grin. “I can’t wait to see that look in your eye when you make a terrible joke. I can’t wait to just sit around in silence with you because we don’t even need to say anything. I can’t wait to listen to you complain about me making you work out even though you know it’s not as bad as you say it’ll be. Mostly I just can’t wait to put my arms around you again and never let go.”

She looked down as she finished and Rylan’s heart broke all over again.

“Just please come back soon, Ry,” Cara pleaded. “This place would be perfect with you here.”

The hologram ended and the Corellian played it again. And again. And again.

She thought if she played it enough times, the real Cara would show up and it would all finally be perfect.

But as the sun set behind the mass of trees surrounding the _Echo_ , Sorgan was still imperfect.

~

Cara tried not to look nervous as she boarded the shuttle.

Somewhere deep down she knew she had no reason to be nervous, Karga had come through in clearing her chain code and even providing a backup ID in case of an emergency, but this was the first time she’d gotten on a commercial shuttle since….well, she couldn’t even remember the last time. And looking nervous wasn’t a great way to blend in, even if she did have the right identification now.

Cara’s stay on Nevarro hadn’t turned out to be as long as she had planned, but then again, she hadn’t arrived there with a plan to stay anyway. When the job for Mando had gone sideways, all the plans went out the window. He wasn’t going to be able to help her find Rylan, having been given his own mission by the Armorer. So Cara figured that buddying up to Greef Karga was her next best option. If she stayed to clean up the town and got in good with him and the bounty hunters, maybe one of them would help in her search for her partner.

Unfortunately for that plan, Cara couldn’t stand the former magistrate. He was decent in a fight and had useful connections and skills, but _for the love of Alderaan_ that man was pretentious. People like that always rubbed Cara the wrong way, even back to her childhood, and the longer she stuck around listening to him use big words she didn’t think he even knew the meanings of, the more she was likely to knock his teeth out.

So she decided she’d figure out a way to hire one of his hunters later, and she booked the first passage she could back to Sorgan with her new, clean chain code.

She’d had Karga clear Rylan’s chain code at the same time as hers, before she left. He’d asked a lot of questions about it -- who she was, why Cara needed her cleared, why she wasn’t asking to clear it herself -- but Cara never answered him. She still only trusted Karga as far as she could throw him, even after he’d turned to Mando’s side. Luckily for him she was known for being able to throw people pretty far, but not far enough to be willing to tell him why she needed that particular favor. Enough people knew that story already. And she wasn’t about to add one more person that could potentially betray her.

As she settled in on the shuttle, Cara’s mind drifted to the one person she would always be sure would never betray her. For the first time in a long time, she felt a ray of hope that she’d find Rylan soon, even if it was only a small one. The ship lurched as it entered hyperspace, and her heart ached to be back in the cockpit of the _Echo_ with her favorite pilot. Space travel was only ever enjoyable when she was sitting in that co-pilot’s chair next to her.

She knew she couldn’t wait another day without doing whatever she could to get her back.

~

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into that,” Rylan whined to Ida as she held a cold glass of ale against her temple.

“Hey, it’s not my fault your woman gave me unrealistic expectations of what ex-shock troopers can do,” the older woman defended, pouring the Corellian another ale to actually drink. Ida had suggested Rylan take on a fight when she mentioned she could use some credits. She figured this former dropper would have just as good of a chance, would be just as scrappy as Cara, even if she wasn’t quite as muscly.

She was quite wrong.

Rylan had put on some muscle in prison, and she’d always been pretty quick and wily, but about 10 seconds into her first fight she realized she should have been paying more attention to Cara’s strategies than her muscles when she’d watched her. She also realized that Cara’s head must have been hard as a rock. One good shot to her own fragile skull was all it took for her to admit this was a very bad idea.

Ry groaned as she took a drink and Ida just laughed at her. As hard as the common house owner had had to work to get Cara to open up to her, the Corellian proved to be just the opposite from her shy partner. They’d hit it off immediately, jabbering for a week straight after Rylan returned to the town from hanging out on the ship for a while. Ida filled her in on everything she knew that had happened to Cara since she arrived, and Rylan shared all the stories about her partner that she’d never gotten around to telling her herself. She was more than happy to do it. It gave her a reason to remember all the good things she’d have again as soon as Cara was back. And it gave her something to pass all the long hours while she waited patiently for that moment to come.

After her own fight went so poorly that she immediately chose to retire, Rylan settled onto a barstool to watch the other ones that were set up for the day. She drank, hollered, placed bets, and tried not to think about how easily Cara could have beaten everybody competing. She let herself get lost in it, and didn’t even notice when a small pack of travelers entered the common house.

None of the handful of people that Cara had ended up on the ship to Sorgan with had ever been there before, and when they found out she was more or less a citizen, they all offered her credits to lead them to a good hub to find work. Cara wasn’t a logger, so she didn’t know exactly where to take them and refused the money, but she figured the common house was a good enough place for them to start. Plus she could really use a drink.

The Alderaanian had to smile as they entered and she heard the familiar, chaotic sounds of a fight day. Ida was tending to some people at the table closest to the door, so Cara stood behind her.

“Crowd’s just not as good when I’m not on the ticket, huh?” she asked to the woman’s back, chuckling when she jumped slightly in surprise. Ida turned around slowly, a grin plastered across her face so big it freaked Cara out a little bit. “What?”

The older woman just shook her head in amusement. “I think you’ll find the crowd is better than it’s ever been, actually,” she said. “Especially over at the bar.”

She turned back to her patrons as Cara just squinted at her in confusion. A few weeks without her around and Ida had lost her mind, she thought.

But as she neared the bar for a drink and surveyed the raucous crowd, the sight of one particular fight fan stopped her in her tracks.

The bright blonde hair was a little too long and somehow even messier than normal, and Cara only saw her from the back, but she’d know that back anywhere. She wasn’t wearing the usual gray jacket, instead letting her (surprisingly toned) arms hang loose under a white shirt, but it was her. There was the tattoo and everything. It was really her.

This time it was Ida who snuck up on Cara. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, nudging her friend in the back. “Go get her.”

Cara wanted nothing more than to do just that. She’d waited for and imagined this moment for so long. It had happened a thousand different ways in her head. But now that it was happening for real, she was paralyzed. What could she say that would be enough? What could she do?

She shook her head as she realized that it didn’t matter. This was Rylan. No matter how it happened, it would be perfect.

Cara’s heart threatened to beat straight out of her chest as she slowly approached the Corellian’s back. She stood directly behind her barstool as the crowd shouted its praise at the winner of the fight that just ended.

“They wouldn’t stand a chance against me,” she said loudly over the captain’s shoulder.

Rylan laughed at what she assumed was her partner’s voice in her imagination. That punch in the head must have done more damage than she thought if she was hearing things now.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking all day,” she said, then felt all the air leave her lungs when a strong hand rested on her shoulder.

As Rylan turned around to the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen, she found herself completely at a loss for words for the first time in her life. It was really Cara. Not Cara from her dreams or imagination. Not Cara in hologram form. It was really her. Right there in front of her, wearing the same scuffed armor, the same side braid, the same gentle smile, the same loving eyes. She looked just the same, and yet it was like Ry was seeing her for the first time.

She flung herself off the barstool and into the hug they’d waited a year to have, unable to wait one more second. They melted into each other and stayed that way for as long as they could stand not looking at each other’s faces. Rylan brushed the hair away from Cara’s eye and shook her head in awe. She couldn’t believe she had survived so long without seeing such an incredible sight. She still didn’t know what to say, so she pulled her close and kissed her passionately, hoping the act would speak for itself.

It must have, because some time later when they finally came up for air, they shared a tear-filled laugh as if some funny story had passed between them. All they could do was stare in each other’s eyes and try not to doubt that this was real.

Cara broke the silence first for once, her hand lingering on her partner’s right arm. “Is it just me or are you filling this tattoo out better these days?”

Rylan couldn’t help but laugh. She’d been trying to figure out the perfect words to say, never considering that the right ones should have been a joke all along.

“Well, you know, there’s not much to do in prison besides work out,” she said with a grin as she pulled Cara close again. “You’d love it there.”

They had no trouble finding things to say after that. Explanations of where they’d been and what they’d done and how they’d gotten back to each other, stories of how they’d kept themselves sane and details of the times they’d been unable to, descriptions of interesting people they’d met, words of love and desire and passion when they were finally alone together. They could never say enough to make up for the lost time, but they tried their hardest.

Some time later -- maybe a day, maybe a month, who could be bothered to keep track? -- they were lying peacefully in bed on the _Echo_ when Rylan asked Cara where they should go next, where was the next planet to try out.

The Alderaanian just looked her in the eye and shook her head. “We don’t have to look anymore,” she said. “This is the one. Right here.”

The Corellian smiled widely and kissed her, long and sweet.

“Well then,” Rylan said, “welcome home, Cara Dune.”

~

~

~

“You got next, Killis?”

Rylan was awoken from a lazy afternoon nap in the sun by her partner’s voice calling to her. She opened her eyes and sat up to see that Cara had her hands full with half a dozen of the village children trying to wrestle her down.

Ry chuckled. “Against you or the kids?”

“Tag team,” Cara answered with a grin. “Us against them.”

“Oh, ho ho,” Rylan responded humorously. “I like those odds. Better watch out, you little womp rats. Me and Miss Cara here are the best tag team in all the galaxy!” she shouted the last as she charged after them playfully and the children all shrieked and scattered.

Her partner laughed as the Corellian hugged her protectively. “That’s _Commander_ Cara to you, trooper.”

“Ha! Not anymore,” Rylan said. It had been years since either of them had officially held a rank. “Can’t pull that commanding officer crap on me now.”

“Funny, you don’t seem to mind it in b--”

Rylan covered Cara’s mouth with her hand before she could finish. “Yes, but there are no _young ears_ there, are there?” she asked, pointing with her head and making a funny face at the kids that were now surrounding them again.

The kids all giggled and Rylan giggled right back at them. Cara shook her head, noting for the thousandth time that her partner was just a big kid herself at the end of the day.

They had both been welcomed into the village of krill farmers with open arms, Cara because of what she’d done for them in the past and Rylan because she was Cara’s family, and family was everything to the farmers. And it didn’t hurt that the two of them were hard workers, good babysitters, and always ready to run off any raiders that dared to cause trouble.

Cara had been correct on her hologram so long ago -- life in the village was perfect with Rylan there.

They woke up whenever they wanted to each day, then spent them working and playing and talking and sipping spotchka, and at the end they’d watch the sun set before retiring to the cozy little house they’d built together.

They took trips into town to mingle and visit with Ida and collect credits when Cara would fight and Rylan would bet on her. And when the Corellian’s feet itched to be off the ground, they’d jump in the _Echo_ and fly off somewhere, to hang out with Bria on her homeworld, to visit Tycho and the colony on New Alderaan, or just to pick up a job on a planet neither of them had seen before.

They kept an ear out for any news from Mando and the kid, after one day humorously realizing they’d both crossed paths with him and that he was a big reason they were back together. If he ever came around needing help, they’d give it without thinking twice. They owed him that much.

They missed the rest of their unit, wherever they were, and they always made sure to raise a toast to Keoni on the anniversary of his death.

Mostly they just counted their blessings every day, knowing from experience that things could change at any moment. But it wouldn’t matter if they did. Wherever life decided to take them, they’d make the most of it. It could take away the house, the ship, the jobs, the entertainment. But they’d be okay.

They had each other, and that was all that mattered. The rest was just the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a bittersweet feeling, finally finishing something that I had so much fun doing. Kind of can't remember what I did with all my free time before this though. Anyway, thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments or on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to let me know if there's anything specific you want to see! Comment or holler at me on tumblr (@chippingthegoalkeeper).


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